UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA.  SAN  DIEGO 


3  1822  01700  1942 


ORACE-B 

AMUEL 


3  1822  01700  1 


942 


central  University  Library 

P,ease  Note:  This  rtem.ssub,ect 

Date  Due 


UCSD  Lb- 


CI  39  (7/93) 


MODERNITIES 


MODERNITIES 


BY 

HORACE  B.  SAMUEL 


NEW    YORK 

P.    DUTTON    AND    CO. 
681,  Fifth  Avenue 
1914 


DEDICATED 
TO 


MRS.   GEORGE   JOSEPH 


PREFACE 

The  ten  studies  which  constitute  this  volume  are 
devoted  to  individuals  who  are  held  out  as  being 
reasonably  characteristic  of  that  modern  movement 
of  the  last  and  present  century  which  started  with 
the  French  Revolution.  At  any  rate,  they  were  all 
modern  once.  For  the  spirit  of  modernity  enjoys, 
like  the  priest-god  of  the  ancient  grove,  only  a 
temporary  reign,  and  is  speedily  killed  by  its  inevit- 
able successor. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  find  any  common 
denominator  for  the  subjects  of  these  studies.  The 
essays  must  be  left  largely  to  speak  for  themselves. 
If,  however,  an  attempt  were  to  be  made  to  pro- 
nounce of  what  the  spirit  of  modernity  really  con- 
sists, one  might  suggest  that  it  is  a  spirit  of  energy, 
of  fearlessness  in  analysis,  whose  sole  raison  d'etre 
and  whose  sole  ideal  is  actual  life  itself. 

The  studies  on  Miss  Marie  Corelli  and  Herr 
Wedekind  are  here  published  for  the  first  time. 
Those  on  Disraeli,  Heine,  Stendhal,  Schnitzler, 
Strindberg,  the  Futurists,  and  Verhaeren  have  ap- 
peared is  articles  in  the  Fortnightly  Review;  while 
the  essay  on  Nietzsche's  M  Genealogy  of  Morals " 
was  first  published  in  the  English  Review.  I  have 
consequently  pleasure  in  expressing  my  thanks  and 

.      Til 


viii  MODERNITIES 

acknowledgments  to  Mr.  W.  L.  Courtney  and  Mr. 
Austin  Harrison  for  their  courtesy  in  allowing  these 
articles  to  be  reproduced  in  their  present  form.  I 
have  also  to  thank  the  editor  of  the  New  Statesman 
for  permission  to  republish  my  translation  from 
Marinetti's,  "The  Pope's  Monoplane." 

I  have  made  additions  to  the  essays  on  Schnitzler 
and  the  Futurists  with  a  view  to  incorporating 
some  reference  to  the  more  recent  works  of  Dr. 
Schnitzler  and  M.  Marinetti. 

HORACE   B.   SAMUEL. 
Temple,  October  191 3. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Stendhal  :  The  Compleat  Intellectual         .         .  i 

Heinrich  Heine 26 

The  Psychology  of  Disraeli 50 

Nietzsche's  "  Genealogy  of  Morals  "     .         .         .70 

August  Strindberg 91 

The  Weltanschauung  of  Miss  Marie  Corelli       .  114 

Frank  Wedekind 134 

Arthur  Schnitzler 161 

&mile  verhaeren 1 96 

The  Future  of  Futurism 212 

Index 239 


MODERNITIES 

STENDHAL 

THE    COMPLEAT    INTELLECTUAL 

"  I  ONLY  write  for  a  hundred  readers,  and  of  those 
unhappy,  amiable,  charming  creatures  without  either 
hypocrisy  or  morality  whom  I  should  like  to  please, 
I  only  know  one  or  two." 

On  the  assumption  that  with  the  natural  growth 
of  the  population,  "the  happy  few"  for  whom 
Stendhal  wrote  have  sufficiently  multiplied  in  this 
country  to  render  it  likely  that  a  reasonable  number 
of  readers  will  possess  these  requisite  qualifications, 
it  becomes  relevant  to  give  both  some  analysis  and 
some  appreciation  of  a  man  who  is  perhaps  the  most 
perfect  type  of  the  "  intellectual  "  that  Europe  has  yet 
produced. 

For  Stendhal  was  an  intellectual  in  the  fullest  sense 
of  the  term.  Neither  a  recluse  scholar  nor  a  rabid 
doctrinaire,  but  a  man  of  the  world  and  of  action,  of 
brain,  heart,  and  sensibility,  he  sought  and  to  a  large 
extent  found  in  the  intellect  an  energetic  servant,  by 
whose  faithful  escort  he  could  sally  forth  on  that 
"  hunt  of  happiness,"  which  led  him  in  his  variegated 
career  from  the  field  of  battle  to  the  bowers  of  love, 
and  from  the  high  plateaux  of  reverie  to  the  meti- 
culous terre  a  terre  observations  of  psychological 
science. 

A 


2  MODERNITIES 

Henri  Beyle  was  born  in  1783,  in  Grenoble  in 
Dauphin6,  a  town  whose  hidebound  provincialism 
he  hated  consistently  from  his  childhood  to  his 
death. 

"  His  childhood,"  to  quote  from  his  own  auto- 
biography, "  was  a  continual  period  of  unhappiness 
and  of  hate  and  of  the  sweets  of  a  vengeance  which 
was  always  helpless."  Loving  his  mother,  according 
to  his  somewhat  pathetic  boast,  with  a  man's  passion, 
he  lost  her  at  the  age  of  seven.  On  being  told  that 
God  had  taken  her  away,  he  conceived  with  immediate 
logic  an  implacable  hatred  against  that  Deity  who 
had  deprived  him  of  the  being  whom  he  loved  most 
in  the  world,  a  hatred  which,  turning  into  momentary 
gratitude  on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  his  bete 
noire,  his  Aunt  Seraphie,  was  finally  merged  in  the 
chilly  negation  of  the  honest  atheist.  Inasmuch  as 
to  the  quality  of  logic  Stendhal  added  those  of  re- 
belliousness and  imagination,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
even  in  childhood  his  relations  should  have  been 
inharmonious  with  his  father,  a  royalist  lawyer 
situated  on  the  borderland  between  the  bourgeoisie 
and  the  gentry.  The  royalism  of  his  father  im- 
mediately sufficed  to  turn  Henri  into  the  reddest  of 
republicans.  The  execution  of  Louis  XVI  filled  his 
childish  heart  with  holy  glee,  and  the  guillotining  of 
two  royalist  priests  at  Grenoble  affected  him  with  an 
elation  which,  if  solitary,  was  for  that  very  reason  all 
the  more  genuine.  So  hot  indeed  was  his  republican 
ardour  that  he  even  forged  an  official  order  requiring 
his  enlistment  in  a  body  of  cadets.  But  although  he 
was  unappreciative  of  his  father,  whom  he  would  refer 
to  in  his  diaries  and  letters  by  the  almost  equally  offen- 
sive synonyms  of  "bastard"  and  "Jesuit,"  he  none  the 
less  manifested  the  deepest  affection  for  his  maternal 
grandfather,  M.  Gagnon,  a  Voltairean  doctor  of  lively 


STENDHAL  3 

intellect  and  genial  disposition,  and  for  the  cook  and 
the  butler  of  the  paternal  house. 

The  child  soon  began  to  stimulate  by  books  his 
naturally  precocious  imagination,  stealing  in  his  thirst 
for  knowledge  those  volumes  which  the  solicitude  or 
conventionalism  of  his  father  deemed  it  inexpedient 
for  him  to  read.  From  La  Nouvelle  Heloise  in 
particular  he  would  appear  to  have  derived  imagin- 
ative transports  far  transcending  the  joys  of  a  prosaic 
reality.  But  he  had  conceived  an  early  aversion  to 
poetry  by  reason  of  an  awful  poem  by  some  Jesuit 
about  a  fly  that  got  drowned  in  a  cup  of  milk.  The 
reading  of  Moliere,  however,  dispelled  the  unpleasant 
association,  and  his  early  ambition  became  crystallised 
into  going  to  Paris  and  writing  a  comedy.  For  apart 
from  the  magnetic  attraction  of  the  metropolis  itself, 
Grenoble  exacerbated  his  nerves.  Unappreciated  at 
home,  he  found  himself,  with  the  exception  of  one  or 
two  genuine  friendships,  solitary  and  unpopular  at 
school  among  those  masters  and  schoolfellows  whom 
he  already  despised.  It  is  interesting  to  remember, 
parenthetically,  that  even  when  a  schoolboy  he  fought 
a  duel,  and  boldly  faced  the  fire  of  what  subsequently 
turned  out  to  have  been  an  unloaded  pistol  by 
concentrating  his  gaze  on  a  distant  rock.  His  intel- 
lectual ability  carried  all  before  him,  and  he  found 
in  mathematics  a  loophole  of  escape  from  his  pro- 
vincial prison.  Coming  out  top  in  the  examinations 
he  obtained  a  bourse  at  the  Ecole  Polytechnique  at 
the  age  of  sixteen,  and  was  sent  to  Paris  with 
instructions  to  place  himself  under  the  protection 
of  M.  Daru,  a  relative  of  the  family  and  the  holder 
of  a  ministerial  appointment.  By  this  time  his  erotic 
ambitions  were  beginning  to  formulate  themselves 
with  comparative  definiteness.  He  had  already  ex- 
perienced a  passion  for  a  Mdlle.  Kably,  a  local  actress, 


4  MODERNITIES 

which  while  never  attaining  a  more  advanced  stage 
than  that  of  inquiring  the  way  to  her  lodgings,  was 
none  the  less  violent.  Anyway,  when  the  boy  went 
to  Paris  he  had  finally  decided  to  live  up  to  the  best 
of  his  ability  to  the  Don  Juan  ideal. 

His  first  sojourn  at  Paris,  however,  surprised  both 
himself  and  his  parents.  With  considerable  obstinacy 
he  refused  to  attend  the  Polytechnique  and  set  himself 
to  study  privately  in  his  own  rooms.  But  the  first 
essay  at  the  single  life  proved  a  fiasco.  No  dashing 
romances  coloured  his  solitary  existence,  while  he 
was  either  too  nervous  or  too  refined  to  sully  his 
soul  with  mere  mercenary  pleasure.  He  became 
dreamy  and  ill,  and  was  eventually  taken  charge  of 
by  the  Darus.  In  the  pompous  officialdom  of  this 
family  his  health  recovered,  but  his  spirit  rebelled. 
He  complains  bitterly  that  he  not  only  had  to  sleep 
in  the  house  but  also  to  dine  with  the  family.  He 
none  the  less  knit  a  firm  friendship  with  his  cousin 
Martial  Daru,  a  brainless  and  amiable  youth  who 
subsequently  at  Milan  and  at  Brunswick  taught 
him  the  elementary  rules  of  amoristic  etiquette. 

The  Marengo  campaign  gave  him  an  opportunity 
of  practising  that  Napoleonic  worship  which  was  his 
one  and  only  religion.  The  influence  of  the  Darus 
procured  him  a  commission,  and  the  passage  of  the 
St.  Bernard  was  one  of  the  landmarks  of  his  life. 
He  drank  to  the  full  the  intoxication  of  victory  which 
attended  the  entry  into  Milan  of  the  youthful  army, 
and  conceived  for  the  Countess  Angela  Pietragrua, 
**  a  sublime  wanton  a  la  Lucrezia  Borgia,"  a  passion 
which  ten  years  subsequently  was  duly  rewarded. 
The  Milan  period  was,  according  to  that  epitaph 
which  he  penned  himself,  "the  finest  in  his  life."  "He 
adored  music  and  literary  renown,  set  great  store  by 
the   art  of  giving  a  good  blow  with   the  sabre  and 


STENDHAL  5 

was  wounded  in  the  foot  by  a  thrust  received  in  a 
duel.  He  was  aide-de-camp  to  Lieutenant-General 
Michaud.  He  distinguished  himself.  He  was  the 
happiest  and  probably  the  maddest  of  men  when  on 
the  conclusion  of  the  peace  the  minister  of  war 
ordered  the  subaltern  aides-de-camp  to  return  to  their 
regiments." 

Returning  to  Grenoble  on  furlough,  he  fell  in  love 
with  Mdlle.  Victorine  Bigillon,  the  sister  of  one  of  his 
best  friends,  whom  he  suddenly  followed  to  Paris, 
although  his  leave  would  appear  to  have  been  limited 
to  Grenoble.  Reprimanded  by  the  authorities  he 
sent  in  his  resignation,  and  "  madder  than  ever 
started  to  study  with  the  view  of  becoming  a  great 
man."  His  experiences,  subjective  and  objective, 
during  this  period  are  described  in  his  journal  with 
a  detail,  a  lucidity,  an  honesty  which  are  worthy  of 
some  mention.  For  we  see  now  officially  scheduled 
and  officially  annotated  all  those  heterogeneous 
qualities  which  made  up  the  sum  of  this  man's  psy- 
chology; his  rigid  intellectualism,  his  sentimentality, 
his  ambition,  his  artistic  enthusiasm,  his  constant  flow 
of  analytical  energy  (directed  now  against  the  external 
world,  now  against  himself,  yet  scarcely  for  a  single 
moment  losing  itself  in  a  complete  abandon),  his 
love  of  witty  conversation,  whether  his  own  or  that  of 
others,  the  sweep  of  his  intellectual  ideals,  his  intoler- 
ance of  bores  and  fools,  that  apprehensive  self-con- 
sciousness which  so  often  made  him  the  dupe  of  the 
fear  of  being  duped,  his  exuberant  joie  de  vivre,  and 
"  that  love  of  glory  and  sensibility  which  are  only 
for  the  intimes  friends." 

And  extraordinarily  stimulating  are  the  reflections, 
charmingly  interspersed  with  English  phrases,  in  this 
breviary  of  intellectual  egoism,  where  the  /  and  the 
Me  enter  into  a  Holy  Alliance  in  their  heroic  con- 


6  MODERNITIES 

spiracy  against  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  was  mainly 
this  self-consciousness  which  induced  Beyle  deliber- 
ately to  set  himself  to  become  a  psychologist. 
"  Nearly  all  the  misfortunes  of  life,"  writes  our 
twenty-year-old  philosopher,  "come  from  the  false 
notions  we  have  concerning  that  which  happens  to 
us.  Must  know  men  thoroughly."  And  how  he 
scolds  himself  when  he  fails  to  live  up  to  his  ideal, 
and  when  "  his  accursed  mania  for  being  brilliant 
results  in  his  being  more  occupied  in  making  a  deep 
impression  than  in  guessing  others."  And  so  it  is 
that  he  reflects,  "what  a  fool  I  am  not  to  have  the 
knack  of  drawing  out  each  man  to  tell  his  story, 
which  might  prove  so  useful  to  me,"  and  that  the  man, 
who  was  subsequently  to  style  himself  by  profession 
"an  observer  of  the  human  heart"  developed  that 
"  universal  desire  to  know  all  that  passes  within  a  man." 
Though,  however,  his  love  of  psychology  was  thus,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  some  extent  a  case  of  reaction  from 
his  own  nervousness  and  of  externalised  introspection, 
it  is  impossible  to  deny  the  purity  of  his  intellectual 
enthusiasm.  At  an  age  when  even  the  chastest  of 
prose  writers  may  well  be  pardoned  for  wallowing  in 
the  debauchery  of  purple  patches,  he  inscribes  in  his 
journal  that  the  sole  quality  in  style  is  lucidity.  It 
was  this  deeply  rooted  abhorrence  of  floridity  and 
ostentation  that  on  a  subsequent  occasion  nearly  in- 
duced him  to  fight  a  duel  with  a  man  who  had  praised 
unduly  the  well  known  "la  cime  indeterminable  des 
arbres  "  of  Chateaubriand,  that  bete  noire  of  Stendhal's 
of  whom  he  prophesies  in  English,  "This  man  shall 
not  outlive  his  century."  In  the  sphere  of  phil- 
osophy, characteristically  enough  his  logical  and 
mathematical  turn  of  mind  embraced  with  natural 
love  and  facility  the  materialism  of  the  French 
sceptics. 


STENDHAL  7 

"  Helvetius  opened  wide  to  him  the  doors  of  the 
world,"  and  he  became  on  terms  of  affectionate 
friendship  with  the  aged  philosopher  Destutt  Tracy. 
So  radical  indeed  was  Stendhal's  philosophic  bias, 
that  on  one  occasion, feeling  presumably  more  studious 
than  amorous,  he  neglects  an  assignation  with  the 
lady  whom  he  was  pursuing,  to  plunge  with  even 
greater  gusto  into  a  hundred  pages  of  Adam  Smith. 
Though,  too,  he  habitually  worked  twelve  hours  a 
day,  he  would  appear  to  have  cut  a  frequent  figure 
in  both  those  formal  and  Bohemian  sets  of  the  capital 
which  offered  such  refreshing  contrasts  and  facilities 
to  artistic  young  men. 

His  love  for  Victorine  proved  unreciprocated. 
There  followed  innocuous  passages  with  a  respect- 
able demi-vierge,  referred  to  in  the  journal  as  Adele 
of  the  Gate.  But  Stendhal  found  his  chief  distrac- 
tion in  that  society  of  authors,  men  of  the  world, 
and  actresses  whom  he  met  at  the  house  of  Dugazon, 
a  celebrated  teacher  of  theatrical  elocution.  In  this 
variegated  set,  where  the  mutual  relations  and  com- 
plications of  the  various  members  provided  a  chronic 
source  of  interest  and  speculation,  Stendhal  met  a 
young  mother,  named  M61anie  Guilbert  (the  Louason 
of  the  journal),  "  a  charming  actress  who  had  the 
most  refined  sentiments  and  to  whom  I  never  gave 
a  sou."  To  this  lady  Stendhal  set  himself  to  lay  a 
siege,  which  was  eventually  successful  after  a  quite 
unnecessary  duration. 

The  demeanour  of  Stendhal  in  society  is  highly 
instructive.  A  man  of  such  abnormal  sensitiveness 
that  "  the  least  thing  moved  him  and  made  the  tears 
come  to  his  eyes,"  he  encased  himself  in  an  "  irony 
which  was  imperceptible  to  the  vulgar,"  and,  posing 
with  marked  success  as  both  a  cynic  and  a  rou£, 
notes  with  interest  "  the  terrifying  effect  which  his 


8  MODERNITIES 

particular  kind  of  wit  produced  on  society."  But  if 
his  deliberate  brilliancies  won  him  respect  rather  than 
popularity,  they  certainly  consolidated  his  own  self- 
estimation.  "  Maximum  of  wit  in  my  life — Je  me 
suis  toujours  vu  aller  mais  sans  gene  pour  cela,"  runs 
one  of  these  honest  confidences  which  he  made  to 
himself,  "without  lying, without  deceiving  himself, with 
pleasure,  like  a  letter  to  a  friend."  He  needed,  how- 
ever, the  audience  of  a  salon  to  put  him  on  his  mettle, 
and  would  appear,  at  any  rate  during  this  period,  to 
have  been  somewhat  ineffective  in  tete-a-tete.  His 
journal  records  a  lamentable  succession  of  muddled 
opportunities,  of  occasions  when  he  was  too  natural 
to  observe  his  companion  with  sufficient  acumen,  and 
of  occasions  when  he  was  not  natural  enough.  It 
was  the  latter  characteristic,  however,  which  predomi- 
nated, and  even  though  the  emotion  of  his  love  was 
genuine,  its  expression  was  a  bookish  and  theatrical 
formulation  of  an  already  rehearsed  ideal,  directed 
quite  as  much  to  the  critical  approbation  of  his  own 
consciousness  as  to  the  actual  object  of  his  wooing. 
Yet  the  full  gusto  of  a  rich  joie  de  vivre  palpitates 
in  this  incessant  cerebration.  Time  after  time  do  we 
come  upon  the  entry  that  such  and  such  a  day  was 
the  happiest  in  his  life.  And  if  at  times  "  his  only 
distraction  was  to  observe  his  own  state,  it  was  none 
the  less  a  great  one."  His  very  sensibility  becomes 
a  source  of  gratification,  and  he  will  congratulate 
himself  that  he  has  perhaps  lived  more  in  a  day  than 
many  of  his  more  stolid  friends  will  live  in  the  whole 
of  their  life.  The  financial  problem  pressed  irksomely 
upon  him  at  this  period,  and,  combining  business 
and  sentiment,  he  obtained  a  position  in  a  house  at 
Marseilles,  in  which  town  Louason  had  obtained  an 
engagement.  Whether  however  because  of  parental 
pressure  or  because  the  distractions  of  business  had 


STENDHAL  9 

cured  him  of  his  passion,  he  soon  left  Marseilles  for 
Grenoble,  and  subsequently  returned  to  Paris. 

The  campaigns  of  1806  to  1809  offered  new  scope 
to  the  ambition  of  Beyle,  who  always  rose  successfully 
to  practical  emergencies  and  was,  as  he  tells  us 
himself, "  most  simple  and  most  natural  in  the  greatest 
dangers."  He  was  present  at  the  battle  of  Jena,  came 
several  times  into  personal  contact  with  Napoleon, 
and  discharged  with  singular  efficiency  the  fiscal 
administration  of  the  state  of  Brunswick. 

The  next  landmark  in  his  life,  however,  is  his 
passion  for  the  wife  of  his  relative,  the  punctilious 
but  aged  M.  Daru,  a  passion  the  various  nuances  of 
which  are  faithfully  recorded  in  those  sections  of  his 
journal  headed  "The  Life  and  Sentiments  of  Silenci- 
ous   Harry,"  "  Memoirs  of  my  life  during  my  amour 

for  the  Grafin  P y,"  the  narrative  of  the  intrigue 

between  Julien  and  Mathilde  in  Le  Rouge  et  le  Noir, 
and  the  posthumous  fragment  entitled  "  Le  Consulta- 
tion de  Banti,"  a  piece  of  methodical  deliberation  on 
the  pressing  question,  aDois-je  ou  ne  dois-je  pas  avoir  la 
duchesse?"  which,  it  is  believed,  is  quite  unparalleled  in 
the  whole  history  of  eroticism.  For  with  his  peculiar 
faculty  of  driving  his  intellect  and  his  heart  in  double 
harness,  he  analyses  the  pros  and  cons  of  the  erotic 
and  ethical  situation,  the  qualifications  and  defects 
of  the  lady  with  all  the  documentary  coldness  of 
a  Government  report.  His  diary  during  this  period 
is  so  delightfully  honest  as  to  justify  quotations : 
"Tuesday,  18th  April  18 10,  1st  day  of  Longchamps. 

On  the  whole  I  think  that  I  love  the  Countess  P y 

a  little."  "  1  oth  August,  I  have  proved  by  an  evi- 
dence the  truth  of  my  principles  about  rousing  love 
in  the  heart  of  a  woman."  ¥  The  4th  August.  I  was 
reading  the  excellent  essay  of  Hume  upon  the  feudal 
government   from    two   till    half-past   four    o'clock ; 


10  MODERNITIES 

during  this  time  she  wanted  my  presence  ;  au  retour 
she  cannot  say  a  word  without  speaking  of  me  or  to 
me.  J'eus  le  tort  de  ne  pas  hasarder  quelque  entre- 
prise.  Mais  je  le  repete  j'ai  trop  de  sensibility  pour 
avoir  jamais  du  talent  dans  l'art  de  Lovelace  !  " 

Stendhal  would  appear  to  have  treated  this  par- 
ticular liaison  rather  as  a  polite  routine  of  social 
amenities  than  as  a  serious  passion.  How  refreshing 
is  his  account  of  the  tedium  of  the  relationship  :  "  At 
Paris  I  have  no  time  for  working  to  Letellier  [a 
mediocre  comedy  in  verse  which  was  never  finished], 
I  have  here  nothing  but  my  passion  for  C.  Palfy  ; 
'tis  a  month  that  I  reproach  to  myself  the  money 
that  I  spent  without  pleasure  of  mind  into  those 
walls." 

Towards  the  autumn  of  1811  Stendhal  journeyed 
to  Milan,  his  favourite  town  in  Europe  whose  citizen- 
ship he  arrogated  in  his  self-written  epitaph.  Renew- 
ing his  acquaintance  with  the  Countess  Pietragrua, 
for  whom  he  had  languished  in  dumb  nervousness 
on  his  first  visit  to  Milan  ten  years  past,  he  took 
an  especial  joy  in  compensating  for  his  previous 
clumsiness  by  displaying  the  easy  brilliancy  of  the 
man  of  the  world.  And  then  on  the  eve  of  his  de- 
parture from  Milan  he  writes  in  English — "  I  was,  I 
believe,  in  love."  "Apres  un  combat  moral  fort  serieux 
ou  j'ai  joue  le  malheur  et  j usque  le  desespoir,  elle 
est  a  moi  onze  heures  et  demi.  Je  pars  de  Milan  a 
une  heure  et  demie  le  22  septembre  181 1." 

In  18 1 2  Beyle  served  in  the  Moscow  campaign, 
having  obtained  a  position  in  the  commissariat  de- 
partment. It  is  characteristic  that  he  should  have 
kept  his  nerve  during  the  whole  of  that  panic-stricken 
retreat,  shaving  every  day,  and  repelling  with  con- 
siderable sangfroid  and  bravery  an  attack  by  the 
enemy  on  a  hospital  of  wounded.     Disgusted  by  the 


STENDHAL  11 

Restoration,  he  settled  in  Milan  in  1814,  resumed  his 
relationship  with  Mine.  Angelina  Pietragrua,  who 
would  appear  to  have  systematically  deceived  him, 
and  lived  generally  the  life  of  the  dilettante  and  the 
man  of  letters. 

In  18 1 4  he  published  his  first  work,  The  Lives 
of  Hadyn  and  Mozart  par  Louis  Alexander  Bombet. 
This  pseudonym  is  partly  due  to  Beyle's  habitual  mania 
for  anonymity  and  partly  to  the  consciousness  that 
the  substantial  portion  of  the  work  had  been  coolly 
plagiarised  from  Carpani.  Nor  do  any  morbid  pangs 
of  conscience  appear  to  have  ruffled  the  serenity  of 
the  author,  who  found  a  precedent  for  his  action  in 
the  plagiarisms  of  Moliere  and  a  subsequent  justifi- 
cation in  the  money  that  he  obtained.  Emboldened 
indeed  by  his  success  he  published  in  London,  in 
1 817,  a  series  of  travel  sketches,  Rome,  Naples, 
and  Florence,  which  owed  in  some  places  an  un- 
acknowledged debt  to  the  Italian  Travels  of  Goethe. 
Yet  even  so,  viewed  as  a  whole  the  book  possesses 
a  richness  of  material,  a  raciness  of  observation,  a 
joy  of  journeying,  a  spontaneity  of  verve  which  give 
it  a  high  rank  among  travel  literature  and  make  it 
eminently  readable  even  at  the  present  day.  Less 
a  guide-book  than  a  personal  narrative,  it  describes 
the  actual  life  of  the  period  as  actually  lived  by  a 
man  who  plumed  himself  at  thirty  on  still  retaining 
all  the  folly  of  his  youth.  The  author  was  an  en- 
thusiast for  the  theatre,  a  devotee  of  the  ballet,  and 
a  keen  wagerer  of  those  exquisite  ices  which  formed 
one  of  the  chief  allurements  of  the  Scala  Theatre. 
An  enthusiastic  anti-clerical  and  an  eager  reader  of 
forbidden  political  plays  at  midnight  coteries,  he 
yet  feels  on  visiting  the  Church  of  the  Jesuits  "  a 
little  of  that  respect  which  even  the  most  criminal 
power  inspires  when  it  has  done  great  things."     And 


12  MODERNITIES 

how  simply  natural  is  the  following  confession  of  a 
traveller's  faith  :  "  I  experience  a  sensation  of  happi- 
ness on  my  journeys  which  I  have  found  nowhere 
else,  even  in  the  most  happy  days  of  my  ambition." 
In  the  same  year,  1817,  Stendhal  published  his  History 
of  Painting  in  Italy.  This  book  is  remarkable,  not 
so  much  by  its  purely  aesthetic  criticism  as  by  the 
application  to  the  sphere  of  artistic  criticism  of  those 
theories  of  heredity,  climate,  and  environment  which 
were  afterwards  to  be  so  brilliantly  exploited  at  the 
hands  of  Taine.  Some  mention  should  also  be  made 
of  that  simplicity  of  lyric  fervour  which  distinguishes 
the  extremely  fine  dedication  to  Napoleon. 

In  182 1  much  to  his  disgust,  Stendhal,  accused, 
and  apparently  quite  unjustly,  of  being  a  French  spy, 
was  forced  to  leave  Milan.  This  exile  was  all  the 
more  irksome  as  Stendhal's  amoristic  history  had  now 
reached  its  great  climax.  If  Louason  had  constituted 
the  initiation  of  his  youth,  Mme.  Daru  the  acme  of 
his  social  achievement,  and  the  Countess  Pietragrua 
the  incarnate  realisation  of  his  adventurous  search  for 
ideal  beauty,  it  was  in  Methilde,  Countess  Dembowska, 
that  his  mature  heart  found  a  passion  which  though 
always  ungratified  remained  none  the  less  grand.  It 
is  instructive  to  observe  how  honest  was  the  love, 
how  deep  the  devotion  of  this  official  rake  for  u  une 
femme  que  j'adorais,  qui  m'aimait  et  qui  ne  s'est 
jamais  donnee  a  moi."  Particularly  significant  is  it 
that  this  man,  whose  cynicism  had  gained  for  him  the 
sobriquet  of  Don  Juan,  should  have  condemned  him- 
self to  a  three  years'  fidelity  that  thereby  he  might 
become  more  worthy  of  that  "  ame  angelique  cach£e 
dans  un  si  beau  corps  qui  quittait  la  vie  en  1825." 
But  it  is  even  more  interesting  to  notice  how  there 
mingles  with  this  perfectly  genuine  attachment  the 
most  morbid  self-consciousness  and  fear  of  ridicule  : 


STENDHAL  13 

"  Le  pire  des  malheurs,  m'ecriais-je,  serait  que  ces  hommes  si 
sees,  mes  amis  au  milieu  desquels  je  vais  vivre,  devinassent  ma 
passion  pour  une  femme  que  je  n'ai  pas  eue.  Cette  peur  mille  fois 
re"pdtee  a  ete  dans  le  fait  la  principe  dirigeante  de  ma  vie  pendant 
dix  ans.  C'est  par  Ik  que  je  suis  venu  a  avoir  de  l'esprit,  chose 
qui  dtait  la  butte  de  mes  mepris  a  Milan  en  1818  quand  j'aimais 
Methilde." 

In  1822  Stendhal  published  in  Paris  that  book 
De  r Amour  which  he  had  composed  at  odd  moments 
during  his  sojourn  at  Milan.  Thought  by  the  author 
to  be  his  most  important  work,  and  deemed  worthy 
by  the  public  of  a  total  purchase  of  seventeen  copies, 
the  work  possesses  even  at  the  present  day  consider- 
able claims  upon  the  attention.  For  it  possesses  the 
unique  characteristic  of  being  a  treatise  on  the  sexual 
emotion  written  by  an  author  who  was  at  the  same  time 
an  acute  psychologist  and  a  brilliant  man  of  the  world, 
who  could  test  abstract  theories  by  concrete  practice, 
and  could  co-ordinate  what  he  had  felt  in  himself 
and  observed  in  others  into  broad  general  principles. 
While  we  do  not  propose  to  enter  into  a  detailed 
analysis  of  this  work,  which  occupies  more  than  four 
hundred  pages  of  close  print,  we  may  perhaps  mention 
the  author's  fourfold  division  of  love  into  u  amour- 
passion,  amour-gout,  amour  physique,  amour  de 
vaniteV' 

We  would  also  refer  to  just  a  few  of  the  innumer- 
able maxims  with  which  the  book  is  studded,  as  typical 
of  that  naively  subtle  simplicity  which  is  so  charac- 
teristic of  our  author  » 

"  L'amour  c'est  avoir  du  plaisir  a  voir,  toucher, 
sentir  par  tous  les  sens  et  d'aussi  pres  que  possible 
un  objet  aimable  et  qui  nous  aime  " — "  l'amant  erre 
sans  cesse  entre  ces  id6es :  1.  Elle  a  toutes  les  per- 
fections. 2.  Elle  m'aime.  3.  Comment  faire  pour 
obtenir  d'elle  la  plus  grande  preuve  d'amour  possible  ?" 
— "  Tout  l'art  d'aimer  se  reduit,  9a  me  semble,  a  dire 


14  MODERNITIES 

exactement  a  quels  degres  d'ivresse  le  moment  com- 
porte,  c'est-a-dire  en  d'autres  termes  a  6couter  son 
ame." 

And  how  curious  is  the  following  phrase  where  the 
point  of  view  of  this  cynical  rou£  seems  for  once 
quite  in  accord  with  that  of  the  more  ladylike  of  our 
lady  novelists  :  "  Le  plus  grand  bonheur  qui  puisse 
donner  l'amour  c'est  le  premier  serrement  de  main 
d'une  femme  qu'on  aime." 

But  the  philosophical  breadth  of  the  author  is 
perhaps  best  manifested  by  that  spirit  of  comparative 
erotology,  which  induces  him  to  analyse  the  various 
nuances  of  love  all  over  the  world  from  Boston  to 
Constantinople,  while  he  traces  the  connection  be- 
tween each  particular  variation  and  the  climate  of  the 
country  and  the  character  of  the  people. 

With  the  habitual  cleverness  of  his  tongue  ex- 
acerbated by  the  misfortune  of  his  love  affair,  Stendhal 
became  a  distinguished  but  unpopular  figure  with 
the  Parisians.  Most  in  his  element  rt  in  a  salon  of 
eight  or  ten  persons  where  all  the  women  have  had 
lovers,  where  the  conversation  is  gay  and  flavoured 
with  anecdote,  and  when  light  punch  is  served  at  half- 
past  twelve,"  he  was  merciless  to  the  philistine  and 
the  bore,  would  rally  with  tactless  truth  a  highly 
respectable  lady  on  her  liaison  with  the  Archbishop 
of  Paris,  and  would  snub  unwelcome  declarations 
with  artistic  repartee. 

Plunging  vigorously  into  the  controversy  between 
the  Classicism  and  the  Romanticists,  Stendhal  pub- 
lished in  1825  his  celebrated  pamphlet  Racine  and 
Shakespeare,  which  denounced  the  Alexandrine  as  a 
cache-sottise  and  vindicated  the  live  modernity  of  a 
present  age  against  the  dead  orthodoxy  of  a  past 
generation.  This  little  work,  rushed  off  in  a  few 
hours,  is  one  of  Stendhal's  happiest  efforts.     The  style 


STENDHAL  15 

is  bright  with  a  lucid  enthusiasm  and  sharp  with  a 
malicious  logic.  How  crisp  for  instance  is  the  truth 
of  the  following : 

"  Le  Vielliard — '  Continuons.' 

Le  jeune  Homme — '  Examinons.' 

Voila  tout  le  dixneuvieme  siecle." 

Shakespeare  and  Racine  was  followed  by  the  Life  of 
Rossini,  whom  Stendhal  had  known  personally  at 
Milan,  and  by  Armanoe  (1827),  the  first  of  that  series 
of  novels  on  which  the  literary  fame  of  Stendhal 
substantially  rests.  This  work  possesses  all  the  es- 
sential Stendhalian  qualities  ;  the  vein  of  Byronism, 
the  contempt  for  the  bourgeois,  the  lucid  style,  and 
above  all  the  detailed  description  of  what  takes  place 
in  the  interior  of  the  mind.  The  plot  consists  of  the 
sentimental  complications  resultant  on  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  hero,  who  is  one  of  those  souls  made  to 
feel  with  energy,  of  his  natural  disqualification  for 
efficient  marriage.  Yet  with  a  subtlety  which  is 
Jamesian  in  everything  but  the  clearness  of  the  style, 
the  actual  difficulty  is  never  explicitly  mentioned, 
though  every  nuance  of  sensitiveness  is  delicately 
delineated.  And  with  what  delicate  simplicity  does 
Stendhal  narrate  the  suicide  of  Octave,  who  has 
simply  married  his  adored  cousin  in  order  to  leave 
her  the  prestige  of  a  rich  and  honourable  widowhood. 
Shortly  after  the  marriage  Octave  has  left  his  wife  and 
set  sail  for  Greece. 

"  Never  had  Octave  been  so  under  the  spell  of  the 
most  tender  love  as  in  this  supreme  moment.  He 
granted  to  himself  the  luxury  of  telling  everything  to 
Armance  except  the  nature  of  his  death.  A  cabin  boy 
from  the  top  of  the  mast  cried  out  '  land.'  It  was  the 
soil  of  Greece  and  the  mountains  of  the  Morea  which 
were  to  be  perceived  on  the  horizon.  A  fresh  wind 
carried  on  the  vessel  rapidly.     The  name  of  Greece 


16  MODERNITIES 

reawakened  the  courage  of  Octave.  I  salute  you,  he 
said  to  himself,  oh  land  of  heroes.  And  at  midnight 
on  the  third  of  March,  as  the  moon  was  rising  behind 
Mount  Kalos,  a  self-prepared  mixture  of  opium  and 
digitalis  softly  delivered  Octave  from  that  life  of  his 
which  had  been  so  agitated.  He  was  found  at 
dawn  motionless  on  the  bridge,  resting  on  some 
cordage.  A  smile  was  on  his  lips,  and  his  rare 
beauty  struck  even  the  sailors  charged  with  his 
burial." 

Stendhal's  next  work  was  the  well-known  Prome- 
nades en  Rome,  an  admirable  book  entirely  free  from 
the  taint  of  the  conscientious  sightseer,  but  replete  with 
the  original  observations  of  an  acute  cosmopolitan 
who  never  shrinks  from  following  his  fancy  along 
some  amiable  digression.  It  was  however  in  Le  Rouge 
etle  Not'r,  1830,  that  Stendhal  gave  to  the  world  his  real 
masterpiece.  This  work,  which  has  become  since  the 
end  of  the  last  century  the  revered  object  of  the  cult 
of  the  Rougistes,  among  whom  it  is  a  point  of  honour 
to  know  the  whole  book  by  heart,  and  which  occupies 
an  equal  rank  with  that  of  the  Comedie  Humaine  or 
Madame  Bovary,  is  remarkable  both  by  reason  of  the 
intrinsic  character  of  the  hero  and  the  psychological 
technique  with  which  the  story  is  told. 

The  hero,  like  Stendhal  himself,  possesses  a  sub- 
jective and  sensitive  mind,  rendered  tough  and  virile 
by  the  savage  energy  of  the  Revolution.  In  fact 
some  previous  knowledge  both  of  Stendhal's  life  and 
Stendhal's  character  are  requisite  for  the  full  ap- 
preciation of  a  book  which,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  hero  is  not  only  a  seducer  but  also  an 
attempted  murderer,  has  yet  some  claim  to  be 
regarded  as  the  dignified  confession  of  a  robust 
faith. 

Julien  Sorel  is  the  son  of  a  carpenter  in  a  small 


STENDHAL  17 

provincial  town.  Proved  guilty  from  his  infancy  of 
the  unpardonable  crime  of  being  different  from  the 
average  child,  he  is  harshly  treated  by  his  father. 
The  Napoleonic  legend  inflames  his  imagination,  but 
he  lives  in  the  time  of  the  Restoration,  when  it  is  the 
Church  and  not  the  Army  which  opens  a  career  to  the 
ambitious  parvenu.  By  a  stroke  of  fortune  Julien 
obtains  when  nineteen  the  post  of  tutor  to  the 
children  of  the  local  mayor,  M.  de  Renal.  Feeling 
acutely  the  degradation  of  his  menial  position,  he 
violently  rebels  against  his  own  sensitiveness,  as  he 
deliberately  forges  the  natural  softness  of  his  heart 
into  the  most  brutal  iron.  Formulating  the  ideals 
of  pride  and  success,  he  determines  to  live  up  to  them 
at  whatever  cost  either  to  himself  or  others.  When 
consequently  the  charming  though  ordinary  Mme.  de 
Renal  begins  to  manifest  towards  him  a  somewhat 
personal  interest,  he  sets  himself  to  force  the  pace,  as 
a  matter  neither  of  sensuality  nor  even  of  politeness, 
but  of  sheer  self-respect.  What  for  instance  are 
Julien's  feelings  during  the  first  assignation  ? 

u  Instead  of  being  attentive  to  the  transports  which 
he  was  bringing  into  existence,  and  to  those  feelings 
of  remorse  which  somewhat  dulled  their  vivacity, 
the  idea  of  his  duty  never  ceased  to  be  present 
to  his  eyes.  He  was  afraid  of  an  awful  remorse 
and  of  an  eternal  stultification  if  he  should  deviate 
from  that  ideal  model  which  he  proposed  to  follow." 
From  being,  however,  the  mere  instrument  of  his 
ethical  self-discipline,  Mme.  de  Renal  becomes  the 
sincere  object  of  his  romantic  devotion.  But  the 
intrigue  is  discovered  and  Julien  is  packed  off  to  a 
theological  seminary.  Though  a  devout  freethinker, 
he  sacrifices  his  beliefs  to  his  ambition.  His  deviation 
from  the  mediocre  pattern  renders  him  Unpopular, 
but  his  very  unpopularity  only  serves  to  stiffen  his 

B 


18  MODERNITIES 

perverse  obstinacy  for  success.  After  an  agonising 
struggle  he  succeeds  in  winning  the  due  of  abilities, 
and  goes  to  Paris  to  become  secretary  to  the  Marquis 
de  la  Mole,  an  influential  nobleman,  drawn  after  the 
model  of  the  author's  relative,  Comte  Daru.  He  gains 
the  confidence  of  his  employer,  which  he  rewards  by 
an  intrigue  with  his  daughter  Mathilde  (Mme.  Daru). 
Here  again  it  is  stern  devotion  to  principle,  not  natural 
love,  which  is  the  motive.  It  is  in  fact  on  purely 
ethical  and  idealistic  considerations  that  he  goes  to 
the  nocturnal  rendezvous  in  the  same  spirit  that  a 
soldier  goes  to  the  field  of  battle  or  a  martyr  to  the 
stake.  And  as  Banti  in  that  variation  of  Hamlet's 
soliloquy  of  "  To  be  or  not  to  be,"  which  we  have 
already  considered,  clinched  the  question  by  the  con- 
sideration that  if  he  did  not  embrace  the  opportunity 
he  would  regret  it  all  his  life,  so  did  Julien  exclaim  : 
u  Au  fond  il  y  a  de  la  lachete  a  ne  pas  y  aller,  ce 
mot  decide  tout."  Note  also  the  masterly  delineation 
of  the  girl  herself,  who,  yielding  originally  by  reason 
neither  of  her  love  nor  her  weakness,  but  simply 
through  her  romantic  desire  to  emulate  an  illustrious 
ancestress,  falls  completely  in  love  and  manifests  a 
courage  which  in  spite  of  some  affectation  is  none 
the  less  genuine.  The  Marquis  de  la  Mole  is  com- 
pelled to  promise  to  recognise  Julien  as  his  son-in- 
law  and  procures  for  him  a  commission  in  the  army. 
But  now  just  when  the  hero's  ambitions  are  beginning 
to  realise  themselves,  Mme.  de  R&nal  writes,  under 
priestly  instigation,  a  slanderous  letter  to  his  pro- 
spective father-in-law,  who  withdraws  his  consent  to 
the  marriage.  Julien  in  a  fit  of  rage  shoots  at  Mme. 
de  Renal,  gives  himself  up,  and  dies  "  poetically  "  on 
the  scaffold. 

It   is   not   surprising  that  in   view   of    these   facts 
critics  lacking  in  subtlety  have  found  the  character 


STENDHAL  19 

of  Julien  the  wildest  of  impossibilities,  the  most 
monstrous  of  distortions.  It  is,  however,  a  reason- 
ably safe  maxim  to  assume  that  those  characters  in 
novels  which  are  thought  to  be  too  bizarre  to  exist 
are  taken  from  actual  life.  In  this  case  the  actual 
framework  of  fact  is  drawn  from  the  history  of  a  young 
student  of  Besancon  named  Berthet,  while  as  we 
have  already  seen  his  mental  attitude  is  that  of 
Stendhal  himself.  While  no  doubt  a  villain  from 
the  ethical  standpoint  of  a  modern  serial,  Julien  is 
none  the  less,  viewed  more  deeply,  the  Nietzschean 
knight-errant  of  energy  and  efficiency,  the  successful 
pursuer  of  a  subjective  ideal,  and  a  perfect  example 
of  the  Aristotelian  virtue  of  eyKpareia.  Of  all  the 
discontented  young  idealists  of  the  literature  of  the 
late  eighteenth  and  early  nineteenth  centuries,  who 
find  themselves  thrown  into  collision  with  con- 
ventional society,  the  Werthers,  the  Ren6s,  the  Don 
Juans,  the  Karl  Moors,  and  the  Vivian  Greys,  Julien 
Sorel  is  by  far  the  most  interesting  and  intellectually 
by  far  the  most  respectable.  He  has  no  hysterical 
and  visionary  aspirations,  no  mawkish  Weltschmerz.  A 
phenomenal  power  of  analysis  renders  his  aim  direct 
and  simple.  He  proposes  to  open  the  oyster  of  the 
world  with  the  sword  of  his  intellect.  Le  Rouge  et  le 
Noir  is  the  tragedy  of  energy  and  ambition,  the  epic 
of  the  struggle  for  existence. 

Reverting  from  the  emotional  content  of  the  book 
to  its  more  technical  characteristics,  it  may  be 
claimed  that  it  was  the  first  novel  in  the  history  of 
European  literature  to  portray  with  successful  con- 
sistency a  series  of  characters  alternately  complex 
and  simple,  in  a  style  which,  whatever  might  be 
the  personal  sympathies  and  aversions  of  the  author, 
subordinated  all  picturesque  flourishes  to  his  cardinal 
aim  of  psychological  truth.      For   on  the   principle 


20  MODERNITIES 

that  the  external  life  is  but  the  mere  mechanical 
expression  of  the  life  carried  on  within  the  mind, 
Stendhal  portrays  his  characters  by  describing  their 
mental  processes.  This  method  is  of  course  most 
palpable  in  Julien,  who  lives  in  a  chronic  state  of 
soliloquy  which  fails,  however,  to  blunt  the  edge  of 
his  drastic  action,  and  who  keeps  inside  his  brain  a 
register  which  tickets  every  process  with  the  most 
copious  annotations.  But  even  such  comparatively 
simple  characters  as  M.  Renal,  the  purse-proud  mayor 
of  a  petty  provincial  town  ;  Mme.  de  Renal,  the  con- 
ventionally adulterous  wife ;  abbe  Pirard,  the  Jan- 
senist  priest,  all  think  too  according  to  their  dimmer 
lights  and  their  limited  intelligences,  and  their  thoughts 
also  are  duly  recorded  with  scientific  precision. 

The  same  year  in  which  Le  Rouge  et  le  Noir  was 
published,  Stendhal  wrote  his  other  great  work  La 
Chartreuse  de  Parme,  which  while  thought  by  Taine  and 
Balzac,  though  not  by  Goethe,  to  have  been  his  master- 
piece, certainly  lacks  the  original  outlook  and  concen- 
trated force  of  the  earlier  work.  In  this  book,  which 
describes  all  the  ramifying  intrigues  of  that  Italian 
court  life  which  Stendhal  knew  and  loved  so  well,  the 
rich  tapestry  of  romance  is  successfully  embroidered 
by  the  needle  of  the  psychologist.  The  rapid  succes- 
sion of  adventure  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  but  simply  a 
means  to  the  setting  in  motion  of  this  numerous  array 
of  characters  whose  cerebral  interiors  are  so  faith- 
fully portrayed ;  Fabrice  del  Dougo,  the  hero,  no 
Ishmael  of  the  intellect  like  Julien,  but  a  jeune premier 
with  a  soul,  who  runs  a  wild  career  of  military  ardour, 
amoristic  extravagance,  justifiable  homicide,  and 
political  persecution,  only  finally  to  fall  in  love  with 
his  gaoler's  daughter  and  die  in  the  self-chosen  exile 
of  a  Trappist  monastery  ;  the  Duchess  of  Sanseverina 
(a    reincarnation    of    Stendhal's    mistress,    Countess 


STENDHAL  21 

Pietragrua),  his  dashing  and  magnanimous  aunt  who 
loves  him  with  an  ardour  which  the  reader  thinks 
must  at  any  rate  have  needed  a  papal  dispensation  ; 
Count  Mosca,  the  hardened  minister  and  man  of  the 
world  who  is  yet  capable  of  all  the  devotion  of  a 
grand  passion;  his  enemy,  the  grotesque  and  plebeian 
Raversi  ;  the  loyal  and  sonneteering  coachman,  Ludo- 
vici ;  the  pretty  and  amiable  little  actress  Marietta  with 
her  obstreperous  lover  and  her  avaricious  duenna  ; 
Ranuce  Ernest  of  Parma  studiously  living  up  to  his 
majestic  role  ;  and  most  romantic  if  not  most  inter- 
esting of  all,  Clelia  Conti,  with  her  pathetic  clash  of 
amoristic  devotion  and  filial  duty. 

In  1830  the  monetary  embarrassments  of  Stendhal 
forced  him  to  leave  Paris  and  take  up  the  post  of 
consul  at  Trieste.  The  Ultramontanes,  however, 
with  a  not  unnatural  desire  to  be  revenged  on  a  man 
whose  attitude  to  the  Church  is  well  crystallised  in 
the  phrase  that  "the  priests  were  the  true  enemies 
of  all  civilisation,"  drove  him  from  his  position,  and 
he  was  transferred  to  Civita  Vecchia  where  he  re- 
mained till  1835,  solacing  his  ennui  by  the  compi- 
lation of  his  autobiography  and  thinking  seriously 
of  marriage  with  the  rich  and  highly  respectable 
daughter  of  his  laundress.  Returning  to  Paris, 
Stendhal  completed  Litcien  Leuwert,  that  long  posthu- 
mous romance  of  the  financial,  literary,  and  political 
life  of  the  age  of  Louis  Philippe,  a  work  which, 
though  lacking  something  of  the  high  vital  quality  of 
La  Chartreuse  and  Le  Rouge  et  le  Noir,  does  ample 
justice  to  the  encyclopaedic  powers  of  the  author's 
observation.  For  here  too  we  trace  the  personal 
Stendhalian  characteristics,  the  sympathy  with  the 
isolated  intellectual,  the  contempt  for  the  bourgeois 
and  the  philistine,  the  idealisation  of  an  efficiency 
that  is  not  always  achieved.     We  may  perhaps  give 


22  MODERNITIES 

a  quotation  which  well  illustrates  the  friendly  malice 
with  which  this  detached  novelist  treats  even  his 
most  favoured  heroes  : 

*  He  talked  for  the  sake  of  talking,  he  bandied  the  pro  and  the 
con,  he  exaggerated  and  altered  the  circumstances  of  every  story 
which  he  told,  and  he  told  a  great  many  and  at  great  length.  In 
a  word  he  talked  like  a  young  man  of  parts  from  the  provinces ; 
and  consequently  his  success  was  immense." 

And  how  neat  in  the  subtle  simplicity  of  its  irony 
is  the  following  : 

"He  was  received  in  this  house  with  that  stiffness  resulting 
from  baulked  hopes  of  matrimony  which  has  the  knack  of  making 
itself  felt  in  such  a  variety  of  ways  and  in  so  amiable  a  manner 
in  a  family  composed  of  six  young  ladies  who  are  particularly 
pretty." 

Returning  to  Paris,  Stendhal  commenced  in  1838 
the  last  of  his  novels,  the  posthumous  and  unfinished 
Lamiel.  Influenced,  though  by  no  means  discour- 
aged by  the  lack  of  success  of  his  other  novels,  he 
determined  to  write  u  in  a  wittier  style  on  a  more 
intelligible  subject,"  and  with  regard  to  each  incident 
to  ask  himself  the  question,  "  Should  it  be  described 
philosophically  or  described  narratively  according  to 
the  doctrine  of  Ariosto  ?  "  Hence  Lamiel,  the  most 
fascinating  feminine  character  in  the  whole  of  the 
Stendhalian  literature.  For  Lamiel  is  a  young 
woman  possessed  simultaneously  of  a  brisk  intel- 
lectual honesty,  a  lively  humour,  a  charming  naivete, 
and  a  Nietzschean  outlook  on  a  tumultuous  world. 
"  Her  character  was  based  on  a  profound  disgust 
for  pusillanimity,"  and  "  where  there  was  no  danger 
there  she  found  no  pleasure."  The  whole  book  is 
crisp  with  the  true  comic  spirit.  The  scene  in 
particular  in  which  Lamiel  purchases  her  first  lesson 
in  the  essential  element  of  human  knowledge,  as  a 
mere  matter  of  intellectual  curiosity,  is  a  masterpiece 


STENDHAL  23 

of  racy  delicacy.  Yet  acuteness  of  psychology  is  never 
sacrificed  to  airiness  of  style.  Sansfin  the  malicious 
hump-backed  doctor,  Comte  D'Aubign£  Nerwinde 
the  snob,  "a  serious,  prudent,  and  melancholy  para- 
gon always  preoccupied  with  public  opinion,"  the 
plebeian  parents  of  Lamiel,  the  pompous  duchess, 
the  conventional  young  lord,  are  all  portrayed  with 
a  delightful  malice  whose  satire  is  never  too  extrava- 
gant to  be  otherwise  than  convincing. 

But  it  is  Lamiel  herself  who  dominates  the 
book,  Lamiel  with  that  mixture  of  high  flippancy 
and  deep  seriousness  which  is  so  essentially  at- 
tractive, ever  developing  fresh  phases  in  response 
to  her  repeated  change  of  environment,  yet  ever 
retaining  a  fundamental  consistency  with  her  original 
character.  It  can  only  be  regretted  that  Stendhal 
should  have  left  unfinished  what  might  well  have 
been  possibly  the  greatest,  and  certainly  the  most 
amusing  of  all  his  novels,  and  that  having  traced  the 
adventures  of  his  heroine  from  her  plebeian  origin 
to  the  aristocratic  chateau,  and  from  the  aristocratic 
chateau  to  Paris,  he  should  finally  leave  her  floating 
jauntily  amid  all  the  rich  welter  of  Parisian  life 
with  only  a  synopsis  of  those  subsequent  experiences 
which  if  undergone  would  have  entitled  her  to  rank 
as  one  of  the  most  truly  romantic  characters  in  the 
whole  of  fiction. 

In  1842,  Stendhal,  with  his  physical  and  in- 
tellectual faculties  still  unimpaired,  died  suddenly 
at  the  age  of  fifty-nine.  Like  his  hero  Julien,  he 
was  "  game  "  to  the  last,  and  "  I  have  struck  nothing- 
ness "  was  his  self-given  substitute  for  the  more 
orthodox  viaticum. 

In  endeavouring  to  adjudicate  finally  the  value  of 
Stendhal,  it  is  difficult  not  to  yield  to  the  fascination 
of   his  cock-sure    prophecy    of    his    eventual    fame. 


24  MODERNITIES 

For  as  Stendhal  the  man,  in  his  autobiographical 
writings,  La  Vie  de  Henri  Brulard,  Le  Journal,  and 
Souvenirs  d 'Egotisme,  would  project  his  ego  some 
years  forward  and  as  it  were  shake  hands  with 
himself  across  the  gulf  of  time,  so,  one  can  almost 
say,  Stendhal,  the  incarnation  of  the  early  nineteenth- 
century  Zeitgeist,  with  his  genial  greeting,  "  Je  serai 
compris  vers  1880,"  shakes  hands  with  those  modern 
men  of  the  world  who  rightly  or  wrongly  have 
imagined  themselves  to  be  incarnations  of  the 
Zeitgeist  of  the  late  nineteenth  and  early  twentieth 
centuries,  as  they  look  back  with  appreciative 
camaraderie  at  this  earlier  manifestation  of  their 
own  selves.  And  this  no  doubt  is  why  Stendhal, 
viewed  of  course  with  a  not  unnatural  Ultramon- 
tane frigidity  by  such  critics  as  Sainte-Beuve  or  Emil 
Faguet,  has  become  the  spoilt  darling  of  Nietzsche, 
Taine,  and  Bourget,  and  indeed  all  the  more  in- 
tellectual spirits  in  modern  French  and  German 
literature. 

The  life  of  Stendhal  no  doubt  may  not  have 
been  as  ideally  satisfactory  as  his  theories  may  have 
warranted.  A  man,  who  professed  to  find  his  chief 
interest  in  life  in  the  erotic  emotion,  he  played  as 
often  as  not  the  role  of  the  unhappy  lover.  His 
spasmodic  fits  of  political  and  military  ambition 
spluttered  out  in  the  self-complacent  consciousness 
of  their  own  intensity.  He  suffered  throughout  his 
life  from  being  a  dilettante  with  a  financial  com- 
petence. Yet  it  is  no  small  achievement  to  have 
chased  happiness  so  consistently  and  with  so  male 
an  energy,  to  have  kept  unjaded  to  the  last  his 
intellectual  gusto  and  the  appetite  of  his  j'oie  de 
vivre,  and  to  have  been  the  first  man  in  European 
literature  to  have  put  into  efficient  practice,  without 
thereby  in  any  way  detracting  from  the  clearness  of 


STENDHAL  25 

his  own  personal  note,  the  important  principle  that 
the  elaborate  delineation  of  character  is  even  more 
the  function  of  the  novel  than  adventurous  action 
or  picturesque  description.  And  so  it  is  that  we 
entitle  Stendhal  the  patentee  of  psychology,  the 
inventor  of  introspection,  and  take  our  leave  of  him 
with  his  own  epitaph  : 

Qui  giace 
Arrigo  Beyle  Milanese 
isse,  scrisse,  amo. 


HEINRICH   HEINE 

Heine  seems,  viewed  superficially,  the  most  baffling, 
elusive,  and  inconsistent  of  all  writers,  the  veritable 
Proteus  of  poetry.  He  has  so  many  shapes,  that  at 
the  first  blush  it  seems  almost  impossible  to  grasp 
finally  and  definitely  the  one  genuine  Heine.  What  is 
really  this  man  who  is  now  a  gamin  and  now  an 
angel,  whose  face  seems  almost  simultaneously  to 
wear  the  sardonic  grin  of  a  Mephistopheles  and  the 
wistful  smile  of  a  Christ,  this  flaunting  Bohemian  who 
has  written  some  of  the  tenderest  love  songs  in 
literature,  this  cosmopolitan  who  cherished  the 
deepest  feelings  for  his  fatherland,  this  incarnate 
paradox  who  almost  at  one  and  the  same  moment  is 
swashbuckler  and  martyr,  French  and  German, 
Hebrew  and  Greek,  revolutionary  and  aristocrat, 
optimist  and  pessimist,  idealist  and  mocker,  believer 
and  infidel  ? 

Yet  it  is  even  because  of  this  surface  inconsistency, 
this  psychological  many-sidedness  that  Heine  is  a 
great  poet  and  the  one  who,  mirroring  in  his  own 
mind  the  complexity  that  he  saw  without,  is  typically 
representative  of  the  varied  phases  of  the  early  nine- 
teenth century.  Heine  looks  at  life  from  every  con- 
ceivable aspect:  he  sees  the  gladness  of  life  and  rejoices 
therein;  he  sees  the  tears  of  life  and  weeps  ;  he  sees 
the  tragedy  of  life  and  cannot  control  his  sobs ;  he  sees 
the  farce  of  life  and  finds  equal  difficulty  in  control- 
ling his  laughter.  "Ah,  dear  reader,"  says  Heine, 
u  if  you  want  to  complain  that  the  poet  is  torn  both 

26 


HEINRICH    HEINE  27 

ways,  complain  rather  that  the  world  is  torn  in  two. 
The  poet's  heart  is  the  core  of  the  world,  and  in  this 
present  time  it  must  of  necessity  be  grievously  rent. 
The  great  world-rift  clove  right  through  my  heart, 
and  even  thereby  do  I  know  that  the  great  gods  have 
given  me  of  their  grace  and  preference  and  deemed 
me  worthy  of  the  poet's  martyrdom." 

The  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  fact, 
in  which  Heine  lived,  is,  like  any  transition  period, 
disturbed,  unsettled,  paradoxical.  The  most  diverse 
tendencies  boil  and  bubble  together  in  the  crucible  ; 
the  Revolution  and  the  Reaction,  Romanticism  and 
Hellenism,  materialism  and  mysticism,  democracy 
and  aristocracy,  poetry  and  science,  all  ferment  apace 
in  the  psychological  Witches'  Cauldron  of  the  age. 

Heine  simply  represented  the  illusions  and  dis- 
illusions of  this  age,  or  to  put  it  with  greater  precision, 
he  represented  the  clash  and  contrast  between  these 
illusions  and  disillusions.  To  arrive  then  at  a  correct 
appreciation  of  Heine  it  will  be  necessary  to  glance 
first  at  the  main  currents  of  the  contemporary  events, 
the  political  movements  of  the  Revolution  and  the 
Reaction,  and  the  literary  movements  of  Romanticism 
and  ^stheticism. 

All  these  currents  flow  either  directly  or  indirectly 
from  the  French  Revolution.  To  the  more  sanguine 
and  poetical  minds  of  the  time  the  Revolution  had 
manifested  itself  as  a  species  of  Armageddon,  a 
gigantic  cataclysm,  which,  sweeping  away  all  existing 
institutions  with  one  great  shock,  was  to  leave  to 
mankind  an  untrammelled  existence  of  natural  and 
idyllic  perfection.  These  dreamers  were  destined  to  be 
rudely  disappointed.  The  Holy  Alliance  temporarily 
suppressed  the  Revolution  at  Waterloo,  and  an  efficient 
Reaction  reigned  both  in  France  and  in  Germany. 
A  great  religious  revival  set  in  in  Prussia,  culminating 


28  MODERNITIES 

in  the  Concordat  with  the  Pope  in  1821.  The  Press 
was  gagged  by  a  rigid  censorship,  while  the  students 
at  the  universities  were  subjected  to  the  most  rigorous 
police  espionage.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the 
German  idealists  who  hoped  for  liberty  and  progress, 
the  Revolution  had  ended  in  the  most  dismal  of 
fiascos. 

Parallel  with  the  Revolution  ran  Romanticism, 
which  eventually  merged  in  orthodoxy,  or,  to  put  it 
more  accurately,  in  a  mystical  Catholicism.  The 
cardinal  characteristic  of  Romanticism  was  the  revolt 
of  the  individual  against  the  stereotyped  prosaic  life 
of  the  classical  eighteenth  century.  This  revolt 
manifested  itself  in  the  most  untrammelled  freedom 
of  the  ego,  which  either  took  to  rioting  in  an  elabo- 
rate self-analysis,  as  did  Hofmann  and  Jean  Paul 
Richter,  or  else  simply  abandoning  ordinary  life 
gave  itself  up  to  the  cult  of  the  bizarre,  the  mystic, 
the  mediaeval,  and  the  exotic,  and  fell  in  love 
with  the  Infinite,  or,  to  use  the  terminology  of 
the  school,  the  Blue  Flower.  Though,  however, 
Heine  was  in  his  poetic  youth  largely  influenced  by 
the  Romanticists  (he  was,  in  fact,  dubbed  by  a 
Frenchman  with  tolerable  reason  an  "unfrocked 
Romantic  "),  the  essence  of  his  maturer  outlook  on 
life  is  far  from  being  romantic.  The  life-outlook  of 
the  Romanticists  consisted  in  a  vague  yearning  for 
the  ideal  without  any  reference  to  this  earthly  life  ; 
the  life-outlook  of  Heine  on  the  other  hand  was 
made  up  largely  of  the  almost  brutal  contrast  between 
the  ideal  and  the  real,  between  life  as  it  was  dreamed 
and  life  as  it  actually  was. 

Another  current  of  thought  which  it  is  necessary 
to  mention,  though  of  course  it  exercised  rather 
less  influence  on  Heine  than  did  Romanticism,  was 
the  aesthetic  neo- Hellenic  movement  represented  by 


HEINRICH   HEINE  29 

Winckelmann,  Lessing,  and  to  a  certain  extent  by 
Goethe. 

Heine,  however,  though  a  lover  of  the  beautiful, 
lacked  almost  entirely  the  plastic  genius  and  marble 
serenity  of  Hellas,  and  is,  as  will  be  shown  later, 
only  a  Greek  in  the  exuberance  of  his  joie  de  vivre. 
To  summarise  then  the  main  tendencies  of  the  age  in 
which  Heine  was  born,  we  can  see  these  four  dis- 
tinct currents — the  glorious  ideals  of  the  French 
Revolution,  the  official  reaction  against  these  ideals, 
the  cult  of  the  bizarre  and  the  infinite  yearning  of 
Romanticism,  and  the  Hellenism  of  the  aesthetic 
movement.  Let  us  now  turn  to  the  poet's  life,  and 
examine  the  part  played  by  environment,  race,  and 
parentage  in  moulding  his  character. 

Heine  was  born  in  Diisseldorf  on  December  1797, 
and  not  as  is  currently  supposed  in  1799. 

The  Catholic  Rhineland,  in  which  Diisseldorf  is 
situated,  rebelled  more  than  almost  any  other  district 
in  Germany  against  the  despotism  of  the  Prussian 
bureaucracy  ;  it  possessed  an  almost  southern  joie  de 
vivre,  and  only  naturally  exhibited  a  distinct  inclina- 
tion to  the  Catholicism  of  the  Romanticists,  all  of 
which  characteristics  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  are 
to  be  found  in  Heine. 

Further,  Heine  was  a  Jew,  possessing,  in  conse- 
quence, an  hereditary  tendency  to  gravitate  to  the 
extreme  left  wing  both  of  thought  and  of  politics, 
while  the  inborn  Judenschmerz  in  his  heart  was  aggra- 
vated by  the  anti-Semitic  reaction  which  followed 
the  benevolent  tolerance  of  Napoleon. 

The  poet's  father,  Samson  Heine,  was  an  easy- 
going, aesthetic  nonentity  in  moderate  circumstances, 
who  does  not  appear  to  have  exercised  any  serious 
influence  on  the  child's  development.  This  was 
accomplished    by  the    mother,  nee   von  Geldern,    a 


30  MODERNITIES 

cultured  and  strong-minded  woman,  and  a  Voltairean 
by  belief,  who  did  her  best  to  foster  and  stimulate 
her  son's  youthful  intelligence.  The  favourite 
authors  of  the  young  Heine  were  Cervantes,  Sterne, 
and  Swift.  Of  contemporaries,  the  two  men  who 
exercised  any  real  influence  were  the  Emperor 
Napoleon,  and  Byron,  (i  the  kingly  man "  and  the 
aristocratic  revolutionary.  Napoleon  in  particular 
was  the  god  of  his  boyish  adoration.  This  Napole- 
onic enthusiasm  was  largely  fostered  by  Heine's 
friendship  with  a  grenadier  drummer  of  the  French 
army  named  Le  Grand,  while  it  reached  its  climax 
when  he  beheld  with  his  own  eyes  the  beatific  vision 
of  the  Emperor  himself  riding  on  his  beautiful  white 
palfrey  through  the  Hofgarten  Allee  at  Diisseldorf,  in 
splendid  defiance  of  the  police  regulations,  which 
forbade  such  riding  under  a  penalty  of  five  thalers. 

This  worship  of  the  Emperor,  moreover,  resulted  in 
the  wonderful  poem  called  "  The  Grenadiers,"  written 
at  the  age  of  eighteen.  The  swing  and  power  of  the 
poem  have  made  it  classic,  especially  the  great  final 
stanza  beginning: 

"  Denn  reitet  mein  Kaiser  wohl  iiber  mein  Grab." 

Heine  received  his  early  education  at  a  Jesuit 
monastery.  The  first  event  of  any  moment  in  his 
life,  however,  is  his  calf-love  for  Josepha,  or  Sefchen, 
the  executioner's  daughter,  a  weird  fantastic  beauty 
of  fifteen,  with  large  dark  eyes  and  blood-red  hair. 
Josepha  was  the  inspiration  of  the  juvenile  Dream 
Pictures  incorporated  subsequently  in  the  Book  of 
Songs,  and  exhibiting  a  genuine  power  and  an  even 
more  genuine  promise. 

In  1816  Heine  was  sent  into  the  office  of  Solomon 
Heine,  his  millionaire  uncle  of  Hamburg. 

He  seems  to  have  been  singularly  destitute  of  the 


HEINRICH   HEINE  31 

financial  genius  of  his  race,  and  the  business  career 
proved  from  the  outset  a  fiasco.  The  real  key, 
however,  to  the  three  years  spent  in  Hamburg  is 
supplied  not  by  Money,  but  by  Love.  Having 
served  his  apprenticeship  in  Diisseldorf  with  his  calf- 
attachment  to  the  executioner's  daughter,  Heine 
proceeded  straightway  to  a  grande  passion  for  his 
uncle's  pretty  daughter  Amalie.  His  love  was  not 
reciprocated,  and  in  1821  the  beauteous  Amalie 
married  a  wealthy  landowner  of  Konigsberg.  This 
Amalie  incident  was  one  of  the  most  important  in 
Heine's  life,  and  is  largely  responsible  for  his  early 
cynicism.  He  was  disillusioned  with  a  vengeance, 
and  could  now  with  his  own  eyes  inspect  the  flimsy 
material  of  which  "  Love's  Young  Dream  "  is  wove. 
Though,  however,  a  great  personal  blow,  this  abortive 
passion  is  also  to  be  regarded  as  an  invaluable 
aesthetic  asset.  The  poet  of  necessity  is  bound  to 
write  of  his  own  personal  impressions  and  experi- 
ences ;  and  it  is  obvious  that  the  intenser  aTe  these 
experiences,  the  more  vital  will  be  his  poetry.  If 
Heine's  love  for  Amalie  was  the  accursed  flame  that 
seared  his  soul,  it  was  also  the  sacred  fire  that  kindled 
his  inspiration,  and  it  is  to  Amalie  that  we  owe  not 
only  a  great  part  of  the  Book  of  Songs,  but  also 
much  which  is  characteristic  of  Heine's  subsequent 
life-outlook. 

In  1 8 19,  probably  because  Heine  had  given  con- 
vincing proofs  of  his  business  inefficiency,  it  was 
decided  that  he  should  go  to  Bonn  to  study  law. 
He  neglected  his  studies,  and  it  was  not  long  before 
he  fell  foul  of  the  authorities,  owing  to  his  anticipa- 
tion in  the  proceedings  of  the  Burschenschaften  or 
student  political  unions. 

In  1820  Heine  left  Bonn  for  Gottingen.  At 
Gottingen  his  career  was  brief  but  thrilling,  and  he 


32  MODERNITIES 

was  rusticated  after  a  few  months  on  account  of  a 
proposed  duel  with  an  impertinent  junker. 

Transferring  his  quarters  to  Berlin,  he  now  spent 
by  far  the  most  enjoyable  period  of  his  university 
career.  The  intellectual  atmosphere  of  Berlin  was 
quicker  and  less  pedantic  than  that  of  Gottingen,  and 
he  plunged  into  his  studies  with  considerable  energy. 

In  182 1  Heine  published  the  first  volume  of  his 
poems,  containing  the  Dream  Pictures,  some  miscel- 
laneous juvenile  poems,  and  the  Lyrisches  Intermezzo, 
which  was  inspired  by  the  banker's,  in  the  same  way 
that  the  Dream  Pictures  had  been  inspired  by  the 
executioner's,  daughter. 

The  book  was  an  immediate  success,  how  great 
may  be  gauged  by  the  numerous  parodies  and  imita- 
tions which  it  almost  instantaneously  evoked.  It  was 
at  this  period  that  he  wrote  the  two  romantic  tragedies 
of  Ratcliff  and  Almansor.  Both  failures  and  devoid 
of  much  merit,  they  served  none  the  less  useful 
purpose  of  advertising  his  fame. 

In  1823  we  see  an  echo  of  his  passion  for  Amalie 
in  his  love  for  his  younger  cousin  Therese,  who 
seems  in  many  respects  to  have  been  a  replica  of 
her  elder  sister.  Therese,  however,  refused  to  be 
anything  more  than  a  cousin  to  him,  and  his  heart  was 
still  further  embittered  as  is  shown  by  the  poem  : 

"  Wer  zum  erstenmale  liebt 
Sei's  auch  gliicklos  ist  ein  Gott 
Aber  wer  zum  zweitenmale 
Gliicklos  liebt,  er  ist  ein  Narr 
Ich,  ein  solcher  Narr,  ich  liebe 
Wieder  ohne  Gegenliebe ; 
Sonne,  Mond  und  Sterne  lachen 
Und  ich  lache  mit  und  sterbe." 

In  1824  he  decided  to  prosecute  his  studies  for 
his  doctorial  degree  with  greater  seriousness,  and 
leaving  behind  him  the   distractions  of  the  capital, 


HEINRICH   HEINE  33 

went  back  once  more  to  the  more  staid  and  prosaic 
Gottingen. 

Heine  intended  not  merely  to  take  a  degree  for 
the  sake  of  ornament,  but  also  to  practise  seriously 
as  a  lawyer.  How  serious  were  these  intentions 
may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  he  went  to  the  length 
of  paying  in  advance  the  heavy  entrance  fee  which 
the  legal  profession  then  exacted  from  Jews,  and 
became  baptized  "  as  a  Protestant  and  a  Lutheran  to 
boot"  on  June  28,  1825. 

Heine's  conversion  has  frequently  been  criticised 
with  superfluous  harshness.  Let  him,  however, 
explain  his  position  for  himself  : 

"  At  that  time  I  myself  was  still  a  god,  and  none  of  the  positive 
religions  had  more  value  for  me  than  another;  I  could  only  wear 
their  uniforms  as  a  matter  of  courtesy,  on  the  same  principle  that 
the  Emperor  of  Russia  dresses  himself  up  as  an  officer  of  the 
Prussian  Guard  when  he  honours  his  imperial  cousin  with  a  visit 
to  Potsdam." 

After  all,  his  apostasy  brought  with  it  its  own 
punishment,  not  only  in  its  deep-felt  shame,  but  in 
the  fact  that  he  eventually  threw  up  law  for  literature, 
and  thus  rendered  so  great  a  sacrifice  of  racial  loyalty 
and  his  own  self-respect  consummately  futile.  After 
selling  his  birthright  he  found  that  he  had  absolutely 
no  use  for  the  mess  of  pottage  which  he  had  pur- 
chased. 

In  the  summer  of  1825,  Heine,  having  just  suc- 
ceeded in  passing  his  degree,  proceeded  to  the  little 
island  of  Norderney,  off  the  coast  of  Holland,  to 
recuperate.  Living  ardently  the  simple  life  and  in- 
dulging to  the  full  his  passion  for  the  sea,  he  now 
wrote  not  only  the  second  part  of  the  Reisebilder, 
entitled  Norderney,  but  the  far  greater  Nordsee  Cyklus, 
which  in  its  irregular  swinging  metre  expresses  with 
such  marvellous  efficiency  the  whole  roar  and  gran- 

c 


34  MODERNITIES 

deur  of  the  ocean.  Speaking  generally,  of  course, 
Heine  was  too  subjective  to  be  a  real  nature  poet. 
No  writer,  it  is  true,  fills  up  so  freely  and  with  so 
fantastic  an  elegance  the  blank  cheques  of  nightingales 
and  violets,  lilies  and  roses,  stars  and  moonshine, 
yet  none  the  less  these  rather  served  to  grace  his 
measure  than  as  his  real  flame.  His  one  genuine  love 
was  the  sea.  With  the  sea  he  felt  a  deep  psycho- 
logical affinity.  The  sea  was  the  symbol  of  his  own 
infinite  restlessness,  of  his  own  divine  discontent,  and 
mirrored  in  the  sea's  ever-changing  waters  he  beheld 
the  incessant  smiles  and  storms  of  his  own  soul. 

"  I  love  the  sea,  even  as  my  own  soul,"  he  writes.  "  Often  do  I 
fancy  that  the  sea  is  in  truth  my  very  soul ;  and  as  in  the  sea 
there  are  hidden  water-plants  that  only  swim  up  to  the  surface  at 
the  moment  of  their  bloom  and  sink  down  again  at  the  moment  of 
their  decay,  even  so  do  wondrous  flower-pictures  swim  up  out  of  the 
depths  of  my  soul,  spread  their  light  and  fragrance,  and  again 
vanish." 

In  1826  Heine  published  the  Heimkehr,  the  Nordsee 
Cyklus,  the  airy  and  sparkling  Harzreise,  and  the 
first  part  of  the  Reisebilder. 

From  Norderney  Heine  moved  to  Hamburg, 
avowedly  to  practise,  though  it  does  not  appear 
that  he  took  his  profession  with  much  seriousness. 
At  any  rate,  until  183 1,  when  he  migrated  to  Paris, 
his  career  is  excessively  erratic.  At  one  moment 
he  is  paying  a  flying  visit  to  England,  "  the  land 
of  roast  beef  and  Yorkshire  plum-pudding,  where 
the  machines  behave  like  men  and  the  men  like 
machines "  ;  at  another  he  is  on  the  staff  of  the 
Allgemeinen  Politischen  Annalen  and  the  Morgenblatt 
of  Munich  ;  he  is  now  in  Hamburg,  now  in  Frank- 
furt, and  now  in  Italy,  where  his  sojourn  inspired 
the  racy  and  brilliant  Italy  and  Baths  of  Lucca,  both 
of  which  works  obtained   the   gratuitous    and   well- 


HEINRICH   HEINE  35 

merited     state     advertisement    of     prohibition,    and 
achieved  a  most  undeniable  succes  de  scandale. 

The  departure  to  Paris  marks  an  entirely  new 
epoch  in  Heine's  life,  and  offers  a  convenient 
stopping-place  at  which  to  give  some  account  of 
his  early  poetry  and  prose,  as  exemplified  in  the 
Book  of  Songs,  which  was  published  in  1827,  and 
the  Reisebilder,  the  last  part  of  which,  the  Baths  of 
Lucca,  was  published  in  18  31. 

Though  neither  the  Book  of  Songs  nor  the  Reise- 
bilder is  as  great  or  as  characteristic  as  the  Romanzero 
and  Poetische  Nachlese  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  Salon 
on  the  other,  they  are  yet  by  far  the  most  popular 
of  his  works  and  contain  some  of  his  most  delightful 
writing.  One  of  the  first  traits  that  strikes  us  in 
the  Book  of  Songs  is  the  Romantic  tendency  to  bizarre 
and  exotic  themes.  In  the  funge  Leiden  and  Lyrisches 
Intermezzo  in  particular  we  move  in  a  ghostly  atmos- 
phere of  apparitions,  sea-maidens,  skeletons,  and 
midnight  churchyards.  Another  interesting  charac- 
teristic of  these  poems  is  his  deep  love  of  the  East, 
a  love  which  is  to  be  probably  ascribed  more  to 
the  general  eastward  gravitation  of  the  Romantic 
school  than  to  the  poet's  Oriental  blood.  This 
tendency  is  responsible  for  two  of  the  most  charming 
poems  in  the  book,  the  exquisite  lyric  starting  : 

"  Auf  Fliigeln  des  Gesanges 
Herzliebchen  trag  ich  dich  fort 
Fort  nach  den  Fluren  des  Ganges 
Dort  weiss  ich  den  schonsten  Ort. 

Dort  liegt  ein  rotbluhender  Garten 
Im  stillen  Mondenschein  ; 
Die  Lotosblumen  erwarten 
Ihrtrautes  Schwesterlein. " 


And- 


"  Ein  Fichtenbaum  steht  einsam 
Im  Norden  auf  kahler  Hon', 


36  MODERNITIES 

Ihn  schlafert ;  mit  weisser  Decke 
Umhiillen  ihn  Eis  und  Schnee. 
Er  traumt  von  einer  Palme, 
Die  fern  im  Morgenland 
Einsam  und  schweigend  trauert 
Auf  brennender  Felsenwand." 

This  latter  poem  in  particular  illustrates  admirably 
the  vague  melting,  infinite  yearning  which  Heine 
at  first  experienced  as  deeply  as  did  any  of  the 
Romanticists.  There  are  not  wanting,  however, 
and  especially  towards  the  end  of  the  book,  examples 
of  his  later  manner,  of  that  note  of  rebellion  which 
he  was  afterwards  to  strike  with  such  inimitable 
precision.  Occasionally  his  wistful  pessimism  sud- 
denly changes  into  cynicism,  and  in  reaction  from 
his  morbid  sensitiveness  he  derives  a  sardonic  satis- 
faction from  probing  his  own  wounds  as  in  the 
already  quoted  "  Wer  zum  erstenmale  liebt,"  while 
in  the  mock-heroic  Donna  Clara  and  in  the  Frieden 
we  see  that  artistic  use  of  the  anti-climax  of  which 
he  was  afterwards  to  acquire  an  even  greater  mastery. 
Even  in  the  comparatively  early  Lyrisches  Intermezzo 
we  see  him  constantly  playing  on  that  contrast 
between  the  Real  and  the  Ideal,  between  Dream 
Life  and  Waking  Life,  which  formed  so  integral  a 
part  of  his  subsequent  life-outlook.  Speaking  gener- 
ally, however,  the  Book  of  Songs  exhibits  the  senti- 
mental rather  than  the  cynical  side  of  Heine's  mind. 
It  possesses  moreover  those  qualities  which  remained 
in  Heine  throughout  his  life,  the  light,  airy  touch, 
the  intimate  personal  note,  the  delicate  lyric  sweet- 
ness, and  that  concision  which  is  found  in  poetry 
with  such  extreme  rarity. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  Reisebilder.  Its  most 
dominant  characteristics  are  its  inimitable  swing  and 
the  absolute  irresponsibility  of  its  transitions.  The 
grave,  the  gay  ;  the  lively,  the  severe  ;  the  sublime, 


HEINRICH   HEINE  37 

the  ridiculous  ;  the  reverent,  the  frivolous ;  the 
refined,  the  crude  ;  the  poetic,  the  obscene,  all  jostle 
pell-mell  against  each  other  in  this  most  fascinating 
of  literary  kaleidoscopes.  It  is  no  mere  guide-book, 
this  record  of  his  wanderings  in  the  Harz,  in  Nor- 
derney,  in  England,  and  in  Italy,  but  rather  a 
description  of  those  reflections  on  men  and  things 
which  were  suggested  by  his  various  adventures. 
In  style  the  Reisebilder  marks  a  new  epoch  in  German 
prose,  or,  as  has  been  said,  showed  for  the  first  time 
since  Lessing  and  Goethe  that  such  a  thing  as 
German  prose  really  did  exist.  Heine  was  the  first 
to  show  convincingly  that  a  Gallic  grace  and  flexi- 
bility could  be  imparted  into  the  cumbrous  and 
heavy-footed  Teutonic  language. 

Psychologically  the  most  interesting  part  of  the 
Reisebilder  is  the  fervent  Napoleonic  worship  which, 
combined  with  his  love  of  liberty  and  revolt  against 
reaction,  largely  contributed  to  mould  his  life.  The 
general  tone,  moreover,  of  political,  sexual,  and 
religious  freedom  that  characterises  the  latter  part 
of  the  Reisebilder  rendered  Heine  not  a  little  obnoxious 
to  official  Germany,  not  only  because  of  the  intrinsic 
heresy  of  the  sentiments  themselves,  but  of  the 
joyous  rollicking  insolence  with  which  they  were 
paraded. 

It  is  small  wonder,  then,  that  the  Paris  July 
Revolution  of  1830  made  the  poet  feel  "  as  if  he  could 
set  the  whole  ocean  up  to  the  very  North  Pole  on 
fire  with  the  red-heat  of  enthusiasm  and  mad  joy 
that  worked  in  him,"  and  that  in  the  spring  of  1831 
he  migrated  finally  and  definitely  from  Germany  to 
Paris. 

This  migration  to  Paris  marks  the  turning-point  in 
Heine's  life.  His  career  in  Germany  had  throughout 
been  erratic,  unsatisfactory,  and  hampered  by  political 


38  MODERNITIES 

restrictions.  In  Paris  he  settled  down,  felt  that  now 
at  last  he  was  in  a  congenial  element,  and — found 
himself.  It  was  at  Paris  that  he  wrote  his  most 
brilliant  prose  and  found  inspiration  for  his  highest 
poetry,  that  he  experienced  his  wildest  joys  and  his 
intensest  sufferings.  The  first  ten  years  of  his 
sojourn  were  probably  the  happiest  in  his  life.  His 
increased  literary  and  journalistic  earnings  helped  to 
solve  the  financial  problem,  while  socially  he  was,  as 
always,  a  pronounced  success.  He  soon  found  his 
way  into  the  centre  of  the  artistic  set  of  the  capital, 
and  was  on  a  footing  of  intimacy  with  such  writers 
as  Lafayette,  Balzac,  Victor  Hugo,  Georges  Sand, 
Th£ophile  Gautier,  Michelet,  Dumas,  Gerard  de 
Nerval,  Hector  Berlioz,  Ludwig  Borne,  Schlegel, 
and  Humboldt.  In  social  life  Heine's  most  charac- 
teristic feature  was  wit — a  wit  so  irrepressible  as 
to  burst  forth  impartially  on  practically  all  occa- 
sions, and  to  resemble  that  of  the  Romans  of  the 
early  Empire,  who  preferred  to  lose  their  heads 
rather  than  their  epigrams.  Yet  in  private  life  he 
was  a  devoted  son  and  brother,  an  ideal  husband. 
The  correspondence  which  he  maintained  up  to  his 
death  with  his  sister  Lotte  and  his  mother  show  con- 
clusively what  stores  of  German  Gemilt  he  treasured 
in  his  heart.  Particularly  significant  is  the  fact  that 
during  the  whole  eight  years  in  which  he  languished 
in  his  mattress-grave  he  assiduously  concealed  from 
his  mother  the  real  state  of  his  health.  Yet  none  the 
less  "  he  could  hate  deeply  and  grimly  with  an  energy 
which  I  have  never  yet  met  in  any  other  man,  but 
only  because  he  could  love  with  equal  intensity," 
writes  the  poet's  friend,  Meissner.  Heine  disap- 
proved on  principle  of  swallowing  an  injury  ;  when 
he  was  hit,  he  hit  back.  Not  infrequently,  as  in  his 
rather  scandalous  attack  on  Borne,  he  would  riposte 


HEINRICH   HEINE  39 

with  somewhat  superfluous  efficiency,  though  accord- 
ing to  his  own  theories  it  must  have  been  after  all 
only  a  mistake  on  the  safe  side. 

"  Yes,"  writes  Heine,  u  one  must  forgive  one's 
enemies,  but  not  until  they  have  been  hanged." 

Heine's  quarrel  with  Borne  originally  arose  out  of 
the  abomination  with  which  Borne,  who  was  Radical 
to  the  point  of  fanaticism,  regarded  the  somewhat 
poetic  and  elastic  Liberalism  of  his  fellow-Jew,  and  it 
is  instructive  to  enter  into  an  examination  of  the 
depth  and  strength  of  those  views  which  supplied  the 
real  motive  power  which  drove  him  from  Germany 
to  France.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Heine 
himself  took  his  Liberalism  with  perfect  seriousness. 
"  In  truth  I  know  not,"  he  writes,  "  if  I  merit  that 
my  coffin  should  be  decorated  with  a  laurel  wreath. 
However  much  I  loved  Poesy,  she  was  ever  to  me 
only  a  holy  toy  or  a  consecrated  means  for  heavenly 
ends.  It  is  rather  a  sword  that  they  should  lay  on 
my  coffin,  for  I  was  a  brave  soldier  in  the  Liberation 
War  of  Humanity."  It  should  be  observed,  however, 
that  this  Liberal  had  the  most  aristocratic  contempt 
for  the  uncultured  $rj/j.o$,  as  is  shown  by  passages  such 
as  the  following  :  "The  horny  hands  of  the  Social- 
ists who  will  unpityingly  break  all  the  marble  statues 
which  are  so  dear  to  my  heart "  ;  and,  "  If  Democracy 
really  triumphs,  it  is  all  up  with  poetry." 

Yet  there  can  be  no  gainsaying  that  Heine's  politi- 
cal orthodoxy  was  perfectly  unimpeachable  on  that 
anti-clericalism  which  has  always  been  one  of  the 
most  cardinal  points  of  Continental  Liberalism. 

He  is  rarely  tired  of  tilting  at  Catholicism,  and 
while  he  regarded  ascetic  mediaeval  Catholicism  as 
the  vampire  which  sucked  the  blood  and  light  out  of 
the  hearts  of  men,  he  dubbed  the  modern  Catholic 
reactionaries  in   Germany    "the   Party    of  lies,    the 


40  MODERNITIES 

ruffians  of  Despotism,  the  restorers  of  all  the  folly 
and  abomination  of  the  Past." 

Yet,  if  his  beliefs  were  too  wide  to  admit  of  the 
narrowness  of  a  consistent  partisanship,  his  enthusiasm 
was  deep  and  sincere  for  the  joy,  light,  and  liberty  of 
a  new  era  that  was  to  sweep  away  all  the  unhealthy 
and  plaguy  humours  of  that  blind,  delirious,  and 
anaemic  mediaevaldom,  which,  to  use  his  own  phrase, 
has  spread  over  the  countries  like  an  infectious  disease, 
till  Europe  was  but  one  huge  hospital.  Politically, 
in  fine,  Heine  is  a  brilliant  freelance,  who,  too  proud 
to  wear  the  uniform  of  party,  none  the  less  fought 
valiantly  for  the  army  of  Progress  and  Humanity,  a 
forlorn  outpost  in  the  War  of  Freedom.1 

Heine's  polemical  modernity  manifested  itself  most 
efficiently  in  the  Deutschland,  which,  together  with  its 
sequel,  The  Romantic  School,  was  issued  as  a  counter- 
blast to  Madame  de  StaeTs  work  of  the  same  name. 
This  history  of  the  religion,  literature,  and  philosophy 
of  Germany  is  the  masterpiece  of  Heine's  extant 
prose.  An  academic  philosophic  treatise,  of  course, 
it  neither  is  nor  professes  to  be.  As  a  description 
half-serious,  half-flippant,  however,  of  the  main 
currents  of  modern  and  mediaeval  Germany  by  a 
writer  who  sees  life  from  the  bird's-eye  view  of  the 
combined  poet,  journalist,  thinker,  and  man  of  the 
world,  it  is  unrivalled.  It  contains  some  of  Heine's 
loftiest  and  most  sublime  flights,  some  of  his  most 
brilliant  and  trenchant  epigrams. 

Particularly  happy  is  the  comparison  drawn  be- 
tween the  furious  onslaughts  made  by  the  French 
Revolutionists  under  Robespierre  and  the  German 
philosophers  under  Kant  on  respectively  the  divine 
rights  of  kings  and  the  divine  rights  of  God. 

1  Cf.  the  poem  '*  Enfant  perdu,"  beginning  "  Verlorner  Posten  in  dem 
Freiheits  Kriege." 


HEINRICH   HEINE  41 

How  delicious  is  the  conclusion  of  the  parallel 
between  the  two  men  :  "  Each  eminently  represents 
the  ideal  middle-class  type — Nature  had  decreed  that 
they  should  weigh  out  coffee  and  sugar,  but  Fate 
willed  that  they  should  weigh  out  other  things,  and 
in  the  scales  of  the  one  did  she  lay  a  King  and  in 
the  scales  of  the  other  a  God.  .  .  . 

"  And  they  both  gave  exact  weight." 

As,  however,  has  been  previously  pointed  out, 
Heine's  chief  characteristic  as  a  prose  writer  is  that 
marvellous  elasticity  which  can  rebound  from  the 
frivolous  to  the  sublime  with  the  most  consummate 
ease  and  celerity.  Interspersed  with  the  bright  flash- 
light of  the  epigrammatic  pyrotechnics  lie  really  great 
passages,  and  pieces  in  particular  like  those  on  Luther 
and  Goethe  possess  the  clear  golden  ring  of  the 
grand  style. 

Heine's  political  ideals  were  subjected  to  the  in- 
evitable disillusionment.  The  Revolution  of  July, 
which  he  had  fondly  hoped  would  complete  the  work 
of  the  great  movement  of  1793,  merely  resulted  in 
the  anti-climax  of  the  establishment  of  a  bourgeois 
constitution  under  a  bourgeois  monarch.  He  tended 
to  become  generally  embittered.  Money  matters,  too, 
began  to  irritate  him,  and  his  health  to  give  him 
trouble,  and  though  he  found  a  devoted  sick-nurse 
in  Matilde  Crescenzia  Mirat,  a  grisette  whom  he 
married  in  1841,  the  lady  with  whom  "he  quar- 
relled daily  for  six  years  in  that  life-long  duel  at  the 
termination  of  which  only  one  of  the  combatants 
would  be  left  alive,"  yet  none  the  less  his  condition 
began  to  deteriorate.  "The  damp  cold  days  and 
black  long  nights  of  his  exile "  oppressed  him, 
and  he  began  to  yearn  for  the  old  German  soil. 
He  gratified  his  Heimweh  by  a  flying  and  surreptitious 
visit  to  Germany  that  inspired  the  well-known  Germany 


42  MODERNITIES 

or  a  Winter  Tale,  which,  together  with  the  somewhat 
similar  Atta  Troll,  constitutes  his  most  sustained 
poetic  achievement.  These  two  poems  are  about  as 
characteristic  as  anything  which  he  wrote.  They 
represent  admirably  his  wild  classic  Dionysiac  fantasy, 
his  sudden  dips  from  the  most  extravagant  Romanti- 
cism to  the  harsh,  crude  facts  of  reality,  the  marvel- 
lous swing  and  sweep  of  his  Aristophanic  humour. 

Very  typical  is  the  following  satire  on  the 
intimate  relation  between  anthropo-  and  arcto- 
morphism. 

"  Up  above  in  star-pavilion, 
On  his  golden  throne  of  lordship, 
Ruling  worlds  with  sway  majestic, 
Sits  a  Polar  bear  colossal. 

Stainless,  snow-white  shines  the  glamour 
Of  his  skin,  his  head  is  wreathed 
With  a  diadem  of  diamonds, 
Flashing  light  through  all  the  heavens. 

Harmony  rests  in  his  visage, 
And  the  silent  deeds  of  thought, 
Just  a  whit  he  bends  his  sceptre, 
And  the  spheres  they  ring  and  sing." 

The  above  quotation  shows  excellently  the  essenti- 
ally poetic  quality  by  which  Heine's  wit  is  illumined. 
A  satirist  as  keen  and  vivid  as  Voltaire,  he  possesses 
all  the  logical  aptness  of  the  Frenchman  without 
his  dryness.  His  chief  characteristic,  in  fact,  is  the 
method  by  which  in  his  imaginative  flights  he  com- 
bines the  maximum  of  this  logical  aptness  with  the 
maximum  of  humorous  incongruity.  No  humorist 
dives  for  his  metaphors  into  stranger  water  or  brings 
up  from  the  deep  more  bizarre  and  fantastic  gems. 
A  charming  example  of  Heinean  humour  is  the 
following  passage  from  one  of  his  prefaces  :  u  A 
pious  Quaker  once  sacrificed  his  whole  fortune  in  buy- 
ing up  the  most  beautiful  of  the  mythological  pictures 


HEINRICH   HEINE  43 

of  Giulio  Romano  in  order  to  consign  them  to  the 
flames — verily  he  merits  thereby  to  go  to  heaven  and 
be  whipped  with  birches  regularly  every  day." 

One  of  the  most  cardinal  traits  of  Heine's 
wit  and  humour  is  a  phenomenal  freedom  of  tone 
and  language,  a  freedom  that  is  occasionally  not 
always  in  the  most  unimpeachable  taste.  Heine, 
in  fact,  is  a  writer  who  admits  the  public  gratis  to 
his  psychological  toilette,  where  he  exposes  with 
studied  recklessness  his  most  private  thoughts.  This 
question  cuts  too  deep  into  Heine's  life-outlook 
to  be  lightly  passed  over,  and  necessitates  some 
examination.  In  the  first  place  even  Heine's  most 
enthusiastic  admirer  will  admit  that  a  great  deal  of 
this  licence  is  sheer  gaminerie  ;  Heine  is  the  mis- 
chievous schoolboy  of  literature  who  thoroughly 
revels  in  being  naughty,  grimacing  by  an  almost 
mechanical  instinct,  so  soon  as  he  catches  a  glimpse 
of  the  sacred  figures  of  religion  and  sex.  Like 
Baudelaire,  he  loves,  almost  indeed  as  a  matter  of 
conscientious  principle,  to  make  the  hairs  of  the 
philistines  stand  on  end.  His  one  excuse,  however, 
is  that  even  when  he  causes  the  hairs  of  the 
philistines  almost  to  spring  from  their  roots,  as 
indeed  he  does  not  infrequently,  he  conducts  the 
operation  with  so  light  a  touch,  so  exquisite  a  grace, 
that  the  offence  is  almost  redeemed.  Let  him  speak 
in  his  own  defence  in  the  lines  from  the  great 
Jewish  poem,  "  Jehudah  Halevy  "  : 

"  As  in  Life  so  too  in  poetry 
Grace  is  aye  Man's  highest  Good  ; 
Who  has  grace,  he  never  sinneth 
Not  in  verse  nor  e'en  in  prose. 

And  by  God's  grace  such  a  poet 
Genius  we  do  entitle, 
King  supreme  and  uncontrolled 
In  the  great  desmesne  of  thought." 


44  MODERNITIES 

Not  unnaturally  his  coarseness  grew  apace  with 
the  virulence  of  his  disease,  and  he  himself  explains 
his  cause  to  his  friend  "  La  Mouche "  :  u  Vois-tu 
c'est  la  faute  de  la  mort  qui  arrive  a  grands  pas,  et 
quand  je  la  sens  ainsi  tout  pres  de  moi  comme  a 
present  j'ai  besoin  de  me  cramponner  la  vie  ne  fut 
ce  par  une  poutre  pourrie."  This  final  phase  in 
fact  was  simply  a  reaction  against  his  fate,  and  is 
not  altogether  without  analogy  to  that  same  psycho- 
logical principle  which  dictated  much  of  the  crude 
buffoonery  of  Swift  and  Carlyle  by  way  of  an  heroic 
protest  against  their  own  helplessness. 

Far  more  important,  however,  is  the  fact  that 
this  particular  trait  of  Heine  is  profoundly  symbolic 
of  his  outlook  on  life,  especially  where  an  obscene 
jest  marks  the  climax  of  a  genuinely  poetical  flight. 
Circumstance  turned  him  into  a  cynic,  who  saw 
frequently  in  Liberty  but  the  uprising  of  a  squalid 
proletariate,  who  heard  in  the  "  sweet  lies  of  the 
nightingale,  the  flatterer  of  spring,"  merely  the 
"harbingers  of  the  decay  of  its  queenliness,"  and 
who  beheld  in  love  but  a  mere  illusion  of  the  senses 
that  vanishes  so  soon  as  the  beloved  one  utters  a 
syllable.  Held  fast  in  the  grip  of  the  great  World- 
paradox,  Heine  is  forced  to  look  at  life  as  a  glaring 
phantasmagoria  of  blacks  and  whites,  in  which  the 
sublime  and  the  ridiculous,  the  pathetic  and  the 
grotesque,  the  refined  and  the  crude,  dance  along 
hand  in  hand  till  they  become  so  confused  that  it  is 
impossible  for  the  observer  to  distinguish  the  indi- 
vidual partners,  and  he  is  reduced  to  describing, 
in  pairs,  the  giddy,  whirling  couples  that  make  up 
the  fantastic  medley. 

This  incessant  antithesis  makes  Heine  one  of  the 
most  complete  of  modern  writers. 

The  poet's  world  is  composed  of  two  hemispheres  : 


HEINRICH    HEINE  45 

one  is  the  abode  of  the  beautiful,  the  grand,  the 
tragic  ;  the  other  of  the  ugly,  the  petty,  the  comic. 
Most  poets  confine  their  efforts  to  only  a  small 
portion  of  one  of  these  hemispheres.  Heine,  how- 
ever, is  the  Atlas  of  poetry,  who  supports  both  of 
the  half-spheres  of  the  world,  and  who,  by  way  of 
proving  how  easily  his  burden  sits  upon  him,  sud- 
denly turns  juggler,  and  after  showing  his  audience 
one  side  of  the  magic  globe,  will,  hey  presto  !  whisk 
the  whole  world  round,  and  before  they  know  where 
they  are  smilingly  confront  them  with  the  other. 

In  1848  the  spinal  affection  from  which  he  suffered 
became  so  acute  that  Heine  was  compelled  to  take 
to  that  mattress-grave  where,  paralytic  and  half- 
blind  and  racked  intermittently  by  the  most  agonising 
spasms,  he  dragged  out  the  eight  most  ghastly  years 
of  his  life.  At  first  the  death-chamber  was  one  of 
the  favourite  rendezvous  of  fashionable  Paris,  but 
as  the  novelty  wore  off,  his  circle  of  friends  grew 
narrower  and  narrower,  until  eventually  a  visit  from 
Berlioz  seemed  only  the  crowning  proof  of  the 
musician's  inveterate  eccentricity. 

Heine,  however,  rose  manfully  to  the  occasion, 
and  did  all  that  he  could  under  the  circumstances. 
Always  a  passionate  lover  of  the  paradoxical,  he  now 
began  to  appreciate  with  an  intense  and  unprece- 
dented relish  the  infinite  humour  of  the  great  Life- 
farce,  one  of  the  most  effective  scenes  of  which  was 
even  now  being  enacted  in  the  person  of  the  poet  of 
j'oie  de  vivre,  who,  enduring  all  the  agonies  of  the 
damned,  lay  dying  in  La  Rue  d'Amsterdam  to  the 
quick  music  of  the  piano  on  the  story  underneath, 
while  only  a  few  feet  away  shone  all  the  glow  and 
glitter  of  Parisian  life. 

The  chief  occupation  and  solace  of  the  dying  man 
was  the  writing  of  his  Memoirs,  the  great  Apologia 


46  MODERNITIES 

pro  vita  sua  which  was  to  square  his  accounts  with 
the  world,  and  win  for  him  the  future  as  his  own. 

Yet  at  times  the  greatness  of  his  sufferings  would 
soften  his  heart.  He  would  find  in  the  Bible  the 
magic  book  which  had  power  to  dispel  his  earthly 
torments  ;  the  u  Heimweh  for  heaven  "  would  fall  upon 
him,  and  again  would  he  know  his  God.  It  would 
seem,  however,  that  Heine's  death-bed  re-conversion 
is  simply  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  numerous 
instances  of  the  Prince  of  Darkness  exhibiting  mon- 
astic proclivities  under  the  stress  of  severe  physical 
malaise.  For  eight  years  Heine  lay  a-dying,  and 
with  the  skeleton  of  Death  assiduously  serving  the 
few  bitter  crumbs  that  yet  remained  of  his  feast  of 
life,  he  was,  as  a  simple  matter  of  pathology,  almost 
bound  to  believe  once  more,  even  if  he  had  been 
the  most  hardened  infidel  in  existence.  Heine,  how- 
ever, was  no  cynical  atheist.  The  current  religions, 
it  is  true,  he  considered  pretty  poetry,  but  bad  logic, 
yet  none  the  less  he  was  genuinely  imbued  with  the 
ethical  idea. 

"  I  am  too  proud,"  he  writes,  "  to  be  influenced 
by  greed  for  the  heavenly  wages  of  virtue  or  by  fear 
of  hellish  torments.  I  strive  after  the  good  because 
it  is  beautiful  and  attracts  me  irresistibly,  and  I 
abominate  the  bad  because  it  is  hateful  and  repug- 
nant to  me." 

What,  in  fact,  served  Heine  in  the  stead  of  a 
theology  was  his  fervid  enthusiasm  for  Progress  and 
Humanity.  His  real  religion  was  the  religion  of 
Freedom,  the  religion  of  the  poor  people,  the  new 
creed  of  which  Jean  Rousseau  was  the  John  the 
Baptist  and  Voltaire  the  chief  apostle ;  Heine's 
Madonna  was  the  red  goddess  of  Revolution,  who 
exacted  from  her  worshippers  innumerable  hecatombs 
of  human  victims ;  the  Man-god  whom  he  revered 


HEINRICH   HEINE  47 

as  the  Saviour  of  Society  was  Napoleon,  the  Son  of 
the  Revolution,  the  drastic  reorganiser  of  the  world, 
who,  Unappreciated  by  the  pharisees  and  reac- 
tionaries of  his  time,  and  finding  his  Golgotha  on 
the  "  martyr-cliffs  of  St.  Helena,"  endured  for  more 
than  five  years  all  the  agonies  of  a  moral  crucifixion ; 
while  to  complete  our  version  of  the  Heinesque 
theology,  his  Heilige  Geist  was  the  Holy  Spirit  of  the 
Human  Intellect  which  he  says  "  is  seen  in  its  great- 
est glory  in  Light  and  Laughter,"  and  the  Revelation 
which  inspired  him  most  deeply  was,  to  use  once 
more  his  own  phrase,  "  the  sacred  mystic  Revelation 
that  we  name  poesy." 

It  is  interesting  to  trace  the  influence  of  these  last 
ghastly  years  on  Heine's  writings.  His  almost  com- 
plete physical  prostration  brought  with  it  its  own 
compensation  in  the  shape  of  a  marvellous  psychic 
exaltation,  and  the  Romanzero  and  the  Poetische  Nach- 
lese  contain  some  of  his  greatest  and  most  moving 
poems.  Nowhere  do  we  see  more  clearly  his  most 
characteristic  excellences,  his  delicacy,  his  power  of 
antithesis,  his  concision. 

It  is  Heine's  compression,  in  fact,  which  is  one 
of  the  most  pronounced  features  of  his  poetic  style. 
The  whole  quintessence  of  joy  and  pain,  of  love  and 
sorrow,  is  frequently  distilled  into  one  short  poem. 
This  Heinesque  condensation  is  a  variant  of  the 
same  theory  that  can  be  traced  in  the  old  Impres- 
sionist school  of  painters  which  is  concerned  with 
the  outline  and  the  proper  light  and  shading  of  the 
outline  to  the  exclusion  of  minor  details,  and  in  the 
journalistic  cult  of  the  "  story "  in  which  the  ideal 
aimed  at  is  "  the  point,  the  whole  point,  and  nothing 
but  the  point."  Heine,  in  fact,  is  unique  among  the 
poets  for  narrating  a  tale  with  the  minimum  of  space 
and  the  maximum  of  effect,  for  narrating  it  in  such 


48  MODERNITIES 

a  way  that  each  line  serves  to  heighten  the  level  of 
intensity,  till  at  length  the  edifice  is  crowned  by  the 
climax.  This  feature  of  his  style  is  well  illustrated 
by  the  end  of  the  frequently  quoted  poem,  "The 
Asra,"  in  the  Romanzero: 

"  And  the  slave  spake,  I  am  called 
Mohammed,  I  am  from  Yemen, 
And  my  stock  is  from  those  Asras, 
They  who  die  whenever  they  love." 

Though,  moreover,  he  protested  to  the  last  against 
his  fate,  his  tone  in  the  Romanzero  and  the  earlier 
Poetische  Nachlese  is  more  mellow  than  in  his  earlier 
writings.  His  cry  from  the  heart  is  not  the  cry  of  defi- 
ance but  rather  of  the  pathetic  wistfulness  of  impotence. 
Yet  before  the  candle  of  his  life  became  extinguished  it 
leapt  up  in  one  final  flicker,  the  most  marvellous  of  all. 
A  characteristic  caprice  of  fate  made  him  acquainted 
during  the  last  months  of  his  life  with  his  one  true 
soul-affinity,  the  charming  woman  who  is  known 
under  the  pseudonym  of  Camille  Selden  or  La 
Mouche. 

Is  it  then  to  be  wondered  at  that  when  the  rich 
feast  of  a  perfect  love,  for  which  he  had  craved 
Tantalus-like  all  his  life,  was  offered  to  him  almost 
at  the  very  minute  that  his  lips  were  being  sealed  by 
the  cold  kiss  of  death,  the  whole  soul  of  the  man 
should  leap  up  in  indignant  protest,  and  that  such 
poems  as  u  Lass  die  heiligen  Parabolen,"  and  the 
even  more  wonderful  series  of  stanzas  with  the  refrain, 
"  O  schone  Welt  du  bist  abscheulich,"  should  exhibit 
the  cold  insolent  shrug  of  the  man  convinced  of  the 
righteousness  of  his  plea  that  of  all  the  places  in  the 
universe  this  human  earth  "  where  the  just  man  drags 
himself  along  beneath  the  blood-stained  burden  of 
his  cross,  while  the  wicked  man  rides  in  triumph  on 
his  high  steed,"  is  the  most  iniquitous  ? 


HEINRICH   HEINE  49 

Heine  died  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  of 
February  17,  1856.  He  was  buried  by  his  own 
directions  in  Montmartre,  "  in  order  to  avoid  being 
disturbed  by  the  crowd  and  bustle  of  Pere  Lachaise." 

His  writings  form  an  incessant  stream  of  paradoxes, 
but  his   life   is    the    greatest    paradox    of    all.     The 
prophet  of  the  new  religion  of  liberty,  he  was  repudiated 
by  his  country,  and  his  happiest   days  were  spent  in 
the  land  of  exile  ;  throughout  his  life   he  sought  for 
love,   to   live    years    of    the    most    healthy    prosaic 
domesticity  with  his  mistress,  and  to   find   his   one 
true   romance  on   his   death-bed ;  he  imagined   that 
he  was  a  great  political  force,  but  it  is  rather  as  a 
poet  that  he  survives  ;  as  a  poet  his  chief  theme  was 
the  Joy  and  Light  of  Life,  and  he  drew  his  truest  in- 
spiration from  the  darkest  depths  of  his  agony ;  even 
as  a  great  writer  he  has  been  chiefly  known  by  the 
comparatively  inferior  Book  of  Songs  and  Reisebilder, 
while  his  masterpiece,  the   Memoirs,  the  great  highly 
barbed  Parthian  arrow  shot  from  the  grave  to  transfix 
his  enemies  for  all  eternity,  lay  mouldering  for  many 
years  amid  the  dusty  archives  of  the  Vienna  Library. 
His   message,    too,   the    core    and    kernel    of    his 
philosophy,  is  again  a  paradox.     To  the  sphinx-like 
riddle  with  which  every  thinker  is  confronted,  "  Is 
Life    poetry    or   prose,    tragedy   or    farce  ? "    Heine 
made  answer  that  the  pathos  and  poetry  of  life  were 
contained  in  the  fact  that  life  was  so  essentially  grim 
and   unpoetical,   and   that   the    real   tragedy    of    the 
world  lay  in  the  ghastly  farce  of  it  all. 


D 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY   OF  DISRAELI 

The  recent  centenary  of  the  birth  of  Benjamin 
Disraeli  renewed  our  interest  in  the  most  striking 
figure  in  the  English  history  of  the  last  century. 
Throughout  his  life  Disraeli  made  it  an  important 
part  of  his  metier  to  be  interesting,  and  it  is  certainly 
a  convincing  proof  both  of  his  great  natural  fascina- 
tion and  of  the  adroitness  with  which  he  worked  his 
pose,  that  even  beyond  the  grave  his  character  should 
still  exercise  our  curiosity  and  blind  us  with  the 
various  facets  of  its  brilliancy.  He  fairly  bristles 
with  paradoxes,  this  cynic,  who  was  also  a  senti- 
mentalist, this  Oriental  mystic,  who  was  one  of  the 
most  finished  dandies  in  London,  this  shameless 
adventurer,  with  his  pathetic  and  chivalrous  devotion 
to  his  sovereign,  this  political  Don  Juan,  who  pro- 
vided a  classic  example  of  conjugal  affection.  Many 
have  essayed  to  solve  the  riddle  of  the  u  Primrose 
Sphinx  "  ;  but  the  best  testimony  to  their  almost  uni- 
versal failure  is  that  nearly  every  biographer  has  pro- 
duced a  completely  different  version  of  his  character. 
Mr.  Hitchman,  "  one  of  the  helpless,  somnambulised 
cattle  whom  he  led  by  the  nose,"  to  use  Carlyle's 
phrase,  portrays  him  (in  The  Public  Life  of  the  late  Lord 
Beaconsfield)  with  charming  nai'vete'as  the  "disinterested 
and  patriotic  statesman."  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  on 
the  other  hand,  who,  when  still  sowing  his  literary 
wild  oats,  painted  Disraeli  even  blacker  than  the 
Prince  of  Darkness  himself,  in  a  book  unworthy  of 
any  serious  biographer,  simply  overshoots  the  mark. 

50 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI     51 

Froude,  in  his  Life,  comes  nearer  to  the  truth,  but 
is  hampered  by  being  forced  to  compress  the  history 
of  a  crowded  life  and  the  psychology  of  a  complex 
character  into  a  narrow  and  inadequate  compass. 
Both  Froude,  however,  and  Mr.  Sichel,  who  has 
given  us  an  interesting  volume  on  Disraeli's  person- 
ality, lay  too  much  stress  on  his  imaginative  and 
idealistic  features. 

The  reason  for  this  inability  to  comprehend  a 
character,  in  many  respects  singularly  typical  of  his 
age,  lies  not  so  much  in  the  alleged  inadequacy  of 
the  materials  as  in  the  incapacity  of  most  English 
writers  for  handling  general  ideas.  The  English 
mind  is  too  concrete  for  social  psychology ;  it 
delights  in  the  almost  mechanical  work  of  classifying 
animals,  but  fails  to  produce  any  classification  of 
characters  worth  the  name.  The  Disraeli  problem 
is  admittedly  difficult ;  the  secrecy  which  until 
recently  kept  us  from  all  knowledge  of  the  greater 
portion  of  his  papers  and  correspondence  is  un- 
doubtedly a  handicap,  but  the  difficulty  is  by  no 
means  insuperable,  nor  the  material  so  scanty  as  is 
usually  supposed.  Let  us  take  Disraeli  in  relation 
to  his  age,  his  environment,  his  ancestry,  then  what 
would  otherwise  have  struck  us  as  strange,  not  to 
say  impossible,  stands  out  clear  and  inevitable. 
Another  valuable  source  of  information  is  to  be 
found  in  his  novels,  though  it  is  always  difficult  to 
discriminate  between  what  is  and  what  is  not  auto- 
biographical in  these  works. 

A  vigorous  and  imaginative  mind,  when  writing 
about  its  own  history,  will  naturally  not  stint  itself  in 
its  licences  ;  it  will  abandon  itself  to  all  kinds  of 
hypotheses ;  it  will  take  a  certain  phase  of  itself, 
frame  circumstances  to  suit  its  development,  and 
proceed  on  the  fictitious  assumption  ;  it  will  indulge 


52  MODERNITIES 

freely  both  in  caricature  and  idealisation.  In 
Vivian  Grey,  for  instance,  Disraeli  has  slightly 
exaggerated  the  more  cynical  side  of  his  nature  ; 
Sidonia,  on  the  other  hand,  is  an  idealised  version  of 
Disraeli  ;  it  is  Disraeli  raised  to  a  higher  power  ; 
it  is  what  he  would  have  liked  to  have  been,  but  was 
not,  any  more  than  the  actual  Byron  was  as  brave, 
as  romantic,  and  as  fascinating  as  the  ideal  Byron 
who  is  portrayed  in  Conrad,  Childe  Harold,  and  Don 
Juan. 

Yet,  none  the  less,  Sidonia,  Fakredeen,  Vivian  Grey, 
and  Conlarini  Fleming  possess  a  strong  family 
likeness,  and  strike  a  genuine  autobiographical 
note.  With  regard  to  the  two  latter,  Mr.  Sichel,  in 
his  study  of  Disraeli,  is  unwarranted  in  his  attempted 
depreciation  of  their  evidence,  on  the  theory  that 
they  represent  merely  a  distorted  and  transient  phase 
of  Disraeli's  development,  to  be  ascribed  to  ill-health 
and  immaturity.  On  the  contrary,  the  contortions 
of  great  men  in  adolescence  are  peculiarly  instruc- 
tive. It  is  then  that  the  very  elements  of  the  future 
man  are  fermenting  in  the  crucible ;  and  is  not 
growth  more  significant  than  maturity  ?  It  is  not 
a  paradox,  but  a  fundamental  truth,  to  say  that  a 
man  is  never  more  himself  than  when  he  is  not  him- 
self ;  it  is  in  periods  of  violent  upheaval  that  the 
conventional  superstructure  is  destroyed  and  the 
innermost  foundations  of  character  are  laid  bare.  It 
is  far  easier  to  tone  down  than  to  touch  up,  and  the 
unrestrained  sincerity  of  these  early  novels,  written 
under  the  impetus  of  intense  emotion,  throws  far 
more  light  on  Disraeli's  real  character  than  a  book  like 
Endymion,  the  official  pronouncement  of  his  maturer 
years.  A  prudent  use,  then,  of  the  novels,  and  an 
examination  of  his  relations  to  his  age,  environment, 
and  ancestry  should  enable  us  to  construct  a  psychol- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI     53 

ogy  of  Disraeli  that  should  be  at  once  convincing 
and  consistent,  and  adequate  to  shed  light  on  many 
of  the  obscure  points  of  his  character. 

The  Sturm  und  Drang  age  of  the  Revolution  in 
which  Disraeli  was  born  marked  the  passing  of 
Europe  from  childhood  to  manhood,  from  mediaeval- 
ism  to  modernity.  Like  all  transition  periods,  it 
was  peculiarly  complex ;  the  tendencies  being  so 
varied,  and  were  so  frequently  accompanied  by  the 
reactions  against  themselves,  that  it  requires  con- 
siderable care  to  disentangle  the  principal  threads. 

It  was  an  age  of  progress  where  reaction  was 
frequently  to  be  seen  at  work  ;  it  was  an  age  signifi- 
cant for  a  violent  outburst  of  scientific  materialism, 
and  the  consequently  inevitable  mysticism  of  a  re- 
ligious revival.  It  was  an  age  at  once  scientific  and 
romantic,  individual  and  cosmopolitan.  It  was  an 
age  where  circumstances  produced  strange  mixtures, 
so  that  in  England  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with 
the  paradox  that  Gladstone,  the  founder  of  demo- 
cratic idealism,  obtained  his  seat  under  the  old 
system  of  close  boroughs,  while  Disraeli,  the  most 
brilliant  example  of  the  new  democratic  theory  of  la 
carriere  ouverte  aux  talentes,  found  his  way  to  power  as 
the  head  of  the  aristocratic  and  conservative  party. 
The  predominant  note,  however,  was  one  of  demo- 
cratic individualism.  With  the  French  Revolution 
the  yoke  of  responsibility,  political  and  religious,  was 
violently  thrown  off  ;  new  and  wide  fields  had  been 
opened  out  to  commerce  by  the  extended  communi- 
cations and  the  new  mechanical  inventions.  A 
quickened  life  broke  in  upon  the  lethargy  of  the 
previous  century.  The  struggle  for  existence  entered 
on  a  sharper  and  intenser  phase.  Ambitious  men 
vehemently  dashed  themselves  against  the  social 
barrier,  which    day   by    day   became  more   easy   to 


54  MODERNITIES 

climb.  In  every  department  it  was  the  age  of  the 
clever  and  ambitious  parvenu.  In  war  and  in 
politics  Napoleon,  in  poetry  Burns,  in  fiction  Balzac, 
give  convincing  testimony  to  the  power  of  the  new 
regime.  It  was  the  age  of  the  French  Revolution 
and  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  of  Condillac  and  of 
Chateaubriand,  of  Laplace  and  of  Shelley,  of 
Godwin  and  of  Tom  Paine. 

But  equality  is  a  medal  with  two  faces  :  on  the 
one  side  is  written,  "  I  am  as  good  as,  if  not  better 
than,  everyone  else  "  ;  on  the  other,  "  Everyone  else 
is  as  good  as,  if  not  better  than,  myself."  The  first 
was  the  motto  of  the  rampant  individualism  and 
vigorous  national  policy  of  Disraeli,  the  latter  of  the 
hesitating  Christian  spirit  and  sentimental  cosmo- 
politanism of  Gladstone.  Gladstone,  indeed,  is  such 
an  excellent  foil  to  Disraeli  that  we  may  well  be 
permitted  the  following  quotations,  where  the  rift  in 
Gladstone's  lute,  between  the  churchman  and  the 
politician,  stands  in  pointed  contrast  to  the  unity  of 
purpose  that  from  his  earliest  years  actuated  his 
rival.  Gladstone,  torn  between  his  missionary  im- 
pulse and  yearning  for  apostolic  destination  on  the 
one  hand,  and  healthy  ambition  on  the  other,  writes 
to  his  father  :  u  I  am  willing  to  persuade  myself 
that  in  spite  of  other  longings,  which  I  often  feel, 
my  heart  is  prepared  to  yield  other  hopes  and  other 
desires  for  this  :  of  being  permitted  to  be  the  humblest 
of  those  who  may  be  commissioned  to  set  before  the 
eyes  of  man  the  magnanimity  and  glory  of  Christian 
truth.  Politics  are  fascinating  to  me,  perhaps  too 
fascinating.  My  temper  is  so  excitable  that  I  should 
fear  giving  up  my  mind  to  other  subjects,  which  have 
ever  proved  sufficiently  alluring  to  me,  and  which  I 
fear  would  make  my  life  a  series  of  unsatisfied  long- 
ings and  expectations."     Disraeli  is  less  undecided, 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI     55 

as  is  clear  from  the  following  quotation  from  Contarini 
Fleming :  u  I  should  have  killed  myself  if  I  had  not 
been  supported  by  my  ambition,  which  now  each  day 
became  more  quickening,  so  that  the  desire  of  dis- 
tinction and  of  astounding  action  raged  in  my  soul, 
and  when  I  realised  that  so  many  years  must  elapse 
before  I  could  realise  my  ideal,  I  gnashed  my  teeth  in 
silent  rage  and  cursed  my  existence."  Disraeli  will 
give  up  anything  rather  than  his  chance  of  being  a 
great  man.  At  a  time  when  most  clever  young  men 
of  his  age  were  thinking  of  a  scholarship  he  had  finally 
decided  to  go  in  for  a  premiership.  He  has  planned 
his  campaign,  he  will  fool  the  world  to  the  top  of  its 
bent.  When  yet  a  boy  Disraeli  says,  as  Vivian 
Grey :  u  We  must  mix  with  the  herd,  we  must 
sympathise  with  the  sorrow  that  we  do  not  feel  and 
share  the  merriment  of  fools.  To  rule  men  we  must 
be  men,  to  prove  that  we  are  strong  we  must  be 
weak.  Our  wisdom  must  be  concealed  under  folly, 
our  constancy  under  caprice." 

None  the  less,  Disraeli  had  too  vivid  an  imagina- 
tion, too  keen  a  sense  of  the  picturesque,  not  to  be 
affected  to  a  certain  extent  by  the  current  Romanti- 
cism. We  see  this  in  the  Eastern  novels  of  Tancred 
and  Alroy,  also  in  Contarini  Fleming,  the  English 
Wilhelm  Meister,  which  exhibits  the  weaker  and 
more  morbid  side  of  the  author's  character,  and  is 
a  useful  supplement  to  Vivian  Grey.  But  it  is  the 
latter,  however,  who  represents  most  accurately  the 
ideals  and  aspirations  of  the  young  Disraeli,  and, 
taken  generally,  is  a  broad  adumbration  of  his  sub- 
sequent career.  But  the  Disraeli  of  Vivian  Grey 
was  not  so  unique  as  is  usually  considered,  and  an 
analogy  between  him  and  the  celebrated  Frenchman, 
who  wrote  a  novel  about  the  same  period,  and 
one,  moreover,  singularly  typical  of  his  age,  proves 


56  MODERNITIES 

instructive.  Benjamin  Disraeli  and  Henri  Beyle  were 
in  all  superficial  details  so  absolutely  different  that 
one  might  well  hesitate  before  making  the  compari- 
son, yet  they  were  radically  similar  in  many  of  their 
larger  outlines,  and  in  particular  their  characters,  as 
revealed  in  the  heroes  of  two  novels,  Vivian  Grey  and 
Le  Rouge  et  le  Noir,  show  an  extraordinary  resemblance. 
Both  Julien  Sorel  and  Vivian  Grey  are  impelled  by 
a  violent  and  overwhelming  ambition  ;  both,  origin- 
ally excluded  by  their  status  from  participation  in 
the  great  prizes  of  the  world,  set  out  undaunted  to 
conquer,  the  one  as  a  priest,  the  other  as  a  politician. 
Cynical,  with  that  extreme  and  savage  species  of 
cynicism  which  is  the  reaction  from  intense  sensitive- 
ness, they  both  wage  war  on  society  in  their  passion 
for  success,  while  the  nobler  and  more  generous  in- 
stincts with  which  nature  had  endowed  them  perish 
in  the  struggle. 

But  this  Time-Spirit  of  individualism  was  no  mere 
cold-blooded  philosophy  of  egoism.  It  was,  after  all, 
an  age  of  genuine  poetry,  of  fresh  ideals.  The  halo 
of  romance  played  around  the  most  abandoned 
sinners.  Individualism  found,  in  addition,  an  aesthetic 
sanction,  as  was  seen  in  the  prodigious  vogue 
of  Byron,  where  the  picturesque  pose  of  the  one 
man  pitted  against  society  appealed  strongly  to 
the  popular  imagination.  How  deeply  Disraeli  was 
imbued  with  Byronism  is  evidenced  not  only  by  the 
whole  tone  and  manner  of  his  early  life,  but  by  his 
resuscitation  of  the  Byronic  legend  in  Venetia. 

This  spirit  of  combined  idealism  and  intense 
practical  energy  is  met  with  again  in  Disraeli's  race 
and  ancestry.  The  Jewish  race  is  a  compound  of 
materialism  and  idealism.  The  Jew  is  the  dreamer 
in  action,  combining  fluid  imagination  with  ada- 
mantine purpose.     These  two  phases  of  the  Jewish 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI     57 

character  are  seen  excellently  in  Disraeli's  father 
and  paternal  grandfather.  The  latter,  an  Italian 
Jew,  came  over  to  England  about  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  quickly  made  a  fortune  by 
dint  of  his  shrewd  business  talent  and  fixity.  His 
son  Isaac  was  gifted  with  an  unfortunate  superfluity 
of  the  poetic  temperament.  His  youth  was  erratic 
and  unhappy,  but  when  close  on  thirty  he  found  a 
secure  refuge  in  the  quiet  waters  of  literature.  To 
his  Semitic  blood  is  also  to  be  traced  Disraeli's  pro- 
digious tenacity  of  purpose.  He  came  of  a  stiff- 
necked  people,  so  that  opposition  stimulated  him, 
and  his  early  failures  served  but  to  render  sweeter 
his  eventual  success.  He  had,  too,  the  calculating 
foresight  of  the  Jew,  and  could  pierce  the  future,  if 
not  with  prophetic  vision,  at  any  rate,  with  marvel- 
lous intuition.  His  Oriental  strain  of  mysticism 
served  him  in  good  stead.  He  never  forgot  that  he 
was  a  scion  of  the  Chosen  People,  and  came  of  a 
race  which  had  never  sullied  its  purity  of  lineage  by 
changing  its  blood.  Was  he  not  the  chosen  man  of 
the  chosen  race  ?  Could  he  not  read  his  future,  if 
not  in  the  stars,  "  which  are  the  brain  of  heaven," 
yet  in  his  own  brilliant  and  meteoric  brain  ?  He 
had  a  full  measure  of  the  pride  of  race,  and  plumed 
himself  to  the  last  on  what  he  may  well  have  called 
"  the  Oriental  ichor  in  his  veins."  If  his  enemies 
dubbed  him  a  parvenu  he  would  fling  the  wretched 
taunt  back  in  their  faces,  bidding  them  realise  that 
they  came  from  a  parvenu  and  hybrid  race,  while 
he  himself  was  sprung  from  the  purest  blood  in 
Europe.  How  keen  was  this  genealogical  Judaism 
we  can  see  from  the  classic  letter  to  O'Connell, 
where  he  wrote  that  "  the  hereditary  bondsman  had 
forgotten  the  clank  of  his  fetters,"  and  from  his 
masterpiece  of  character-drawing,  Sidonia,  who,  with 


58  MODERNITIES 

wealth,  intellect,  and  power  at  his  command,  yet 
found  his  chief  "  source  of  interest  in  his  descent 
and  in  the  fortunes  of  his  race."  Disraeli's  Judaism, 
however,  did  not  extend  to  the  religious  tenets  of  the 
creed.  Few,  no  doubt,  are  the  instances  of  a  con- 
verted Jew  proving  a  genuine  Christian,  but  Disraeli 
had  too  much  of  the  mystic  in  him  to  be  an  atheist, 
and  if  we  take  into  account  the  elasticity  of  his  imagi- 
nation, there  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  he  was  at 
any  rate  reasonably  sincere  in  his  belief  that  Chris- 
tianity was  merely  completed  Judaism,  Calvary  but  the 
logical  corollary  of  Sinai ;  he  would  also,  no  doubt, 
find  a  malicious  joy  in  reminding  those  who  taunted 
him  with  his  origin,  that  u  one  half  of  Christendom 
worships  a  Jew  and  the  other  half  a  Jewess."  Any- 
way, the  Christian  religion  played  nothing  approach- 
ing an  integral  part  in  his  life  ;  while  an  amiable 
acquiescence  in  its  dogmas  was,  at  the  best,  as  it 
has  been  with  so  many,  but  an  intellectual  habit. 
His  Jewish  origin  helped  him,  moreover,  in  that  he 
approached  the  problems  of  politics  with  a  mind  free 
from  conventional  British  prejudices.  He  was  never 
a  thorough  Englishman,  and  was  proud  of  the  fact, 
instead  of  thanking  God  "  that  he  was  born  an  English- 
man," as  do  many  of  his  race,  who  betray  in  their 
every  word  and  action  their  Jewish  nationality.  His 
admirable  expert  knowledge  of  the  English  character 
was  throughout  professional,  not  sympathetic. 

When  we  turn  to  Disraeli's  early  environment,  we 
find  that  it  was  one  calculated  to  foster  both  ambi- 
tion and  a  literary  imagination.  He  breathed  from 
his  earliest  days  the  atmosphere  of  books,  and  almost 
from  the  cradle  imbibed  avidly  the  many  volumes  of 
Voltaire.  Nothing  is  so  stimulating  to  the  youthful 
mind  as  the  unchecked  run  of  a  library,  with  its 
delightful  excursions  into  the  unexplored  country  of 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI     59 

literature.  His  natural  sensitiveness  was  hardened 
by  his  experiences  at  school,  where  his  nationality 
and  cleverness  rendered  him  unpopular.  The  reac- 
tion intensified  his  already  precocious  ambition,  and 
gave  him  that  consciousness  of  semi-isolation  which 
formed  one  of  the  chief  parts  of  his  strength.  His 
ambition  was  further  heightened  by  the  smart  literary 
set  which  he  met  constantly  at  his  father's  house,  and 
his  early  glimpses  of  the  great  world.  Disraeli  is 
palpably  exaggerating  when  he  says,  apropos  of  Vivian 
Grey,  that  u  he  was  a  tender  plant  in  a  moral  hot- 
house," but  the  following  passage  is  significant : 

*  He  became  habituated  to  the  idea  that  everything  could  be 
achieved  by  dexterity,  that  there  was  no  test  of  conduct  except 
success  ;  to  be  ready  to  advance  any  opinion,  to  possess  none  ;  to 
look  upon  every  man  as  a  tool,  and  never  to  do  anything  which  had 

not  a  definite  though  circuitous  purpose." 

* 

It  is  this  trait  of  doing  things  with  an  object  which 
supplied  the  true  clue  to  Disraeli  as  a  man  of  letters. 
We  admit,  of  course,  the  verve  and  brilliancy  of  the 
novels,  their  claim  to  rank  as  classic,  but  it  is  impos- 
sible to  arrive  at  a  correct  appreciation  of  them  unless 
they  be  taken  in  the  closest  conjunction  with  their 
author's  political  career.  Vivian  Grey,  for  instance, 
no  doubt  afforded  an  excellent  outlet  for  the  ferment- 
ing passion  of  Disraeli's  youth  ;  it  was  itself  one  of 
the  best  society  novels  ever  written,  but  it  was  some- 
thing more.  Before  that  time  the  future  Premier  had 
been  hiding  his  light.  How  could  he  obtain  a  free 
field  for  the  exercise  of  his  gifts  ?  His  father's 
Bohemian  clique  scarcely  answered  his  purpose. 
How  could  he  burst  open  the  doors  of  society  ?  The 
bombshell  was  supplied  by  Vivian  Grey.  It  was  a  case 
of  self-advertisement  raised  to  the  level  of  a  fine  art, 
and  Disraeli  introduced  himself  to  the  public  with  a 
bow  of  most  elaborate  flourishes.     Contarini  Fleming 


60  MODERNITIES 

strikes  a  slightly  different  note,  exhibiting  the  more 
poetic  side  of  its  author's  character  ;  but  we  must 
not  forget  that  at  the  time  when  it  was  published 
Disraeli's  long  absence  in  the  East  had  temporarily 
obscured  his  fame  in  London,  and  that  it  was  the 
success  of  Contarini  Fleming  which  secured  for  him  once 
more  the  entree  into  society.  Similarly,  Coningsby, 
Sybil,  and  Tancred  were,  in  the  main,  but  the  gospels 
in  which,  in  the  role  of  a  political  saviour,  he  propa- 
gated the  new  creed  of  Young  England.  Lothair  and 
Endymion  were  partly  written  to  replenish  his  empty 
exchequer.  The  protagonists,  moreover,  in  all  his 
chief  novels  were  fashioned  in  the  image  of  himself, 
and  even  Lord  Cadurcis  in  Venetia,  who  is  theoreti- 
cally Byron,  is  portrayed  with  the  physical  features 
of  the  author,  so  as  to  ensure  a  vivid  impression  on 
the  public  mind  of  his  own  personality.  Not  that 
Disraeli  did  not  experience  a  genuine  joy  in  the 
wielding  of  the  pen.  He  could  soar  high  in  his 
flights  of  mysticism  and  romance  ;  could  .describe  the 
picturesque  and  the  beautiful  in  passages  of  inspired 
rhetoric,  though  it  was  in  the  dash  and  brilliancy  of 
his  satire  which  at  its  best  equalled  that  of  Heine,  or 
Voltaire,  or  Byron,  that  he  was  most  himself.  His 
style  is  redolent  of  his  race.  It  possesses  the  genuine 
Oriental  glamour,  the  Oriental  love  of  gorgeous  and 
grandiose  magnificence,  the  Oriental  lack  of  symmetry 
and  proportion.  His  prodigious  genius  for  sarcasm 
was  also  Semitic,  if  we  are  to  believe  Mr.  Bryce,  who 
considers  that  gift  a  peculiar  property  of  the  race, 
instancing,  as  examples,  Lucian  and  Heine,  the  greatest 
satirists  of  ancient  and  modern  times. 

This  same  combination  of  temperament  and  policy 
which  explains  Disraeli,  the  man  of  letters,  explains 
Disraeli,  the  dandy.  Living  as  he  did  in  an  age 
which  revolted,  under  the  leadership  of  Count  D'Orsay, 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI    61 

against  the  chaste  and  classic  traditions  of  Brummel, 
and  which  offered  in  the  elaborate  picturesqueness 
of  its  dress  an  excellent  medium  for  the  expression 
of  personality,  is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  so  ambi- 
tious a  nature  as  Disraeli's  should,  apart  from  other 
reasons,  enter  gaily  into  the  sartorial  arena  ?  These 
early  years  remind  us  of  Alcibiades,  who,  in  his 
youth,  his  genius,  his  precocious  political  ambitions, 
his  aristocratic  lineage  and  superb  insolence,  his  ex- 
travagance and  irresponsibility,  offers  a  fairly  close 
analogy.  Disraeli,  however,  was  an  Alcibiades  with 
ballast,  and  his  most  erratic  phases  were  governed  by 
a  consistent  purpose.  He  had,  it  is  true,  the  regular 
Hebrew  love  for  the  picturesque,  the  racial  craving 
for  flamboyant  display  ;  but  the  unique  characteristic 
of  the  man  was  the  ingenious  method  by  which  he 
exploited  even  his  weaknesses  to  advance  his  purpose. 
Realising  that  nothing  was  more  fatal  to  his  career 
than  the  indifference  of  the  public,  that  to  be  hated 
was  better  than  to  be  ignored,  and  that  notoriety  was 
a  passable  substitute  for  fame,  he  was  determined  to 
bulk  largely  in  the  public  eye.  Living,  fortunately, 
in  an  age  when  dandyism,  if  not  an  art,  was  at  any 
rate  a  career,  and  when  "  wild,  melancholy  men"  were 
still  the  rage  among  the  ladies,  he  manipulated  the 
dandy  and  Byronic  pose  with  phenomenal  success. 
But  his  social  career  was  not  all  pose.  Though 
political  ambition  was  to  him  always  the  main  point 
of  existence,  he  was  far  too  healthy  to  lose  sight  of  the 
small  change  of  life.  He  had,  moreover,  a  genuine 
love  of  society.  His  remark  apropos  of  Gladstone, 
"  What  can  we  do  with  a  leader  who  is  not  even  in 
society  ?  "  was  sincere  in  spite  of  being  an  epigram, 
and  the  hosts  of  great  ladies  who  crowd  his  novels 
attest  conclusively  to  his  social  fastidiousness.  But 
the  most  convincing  proof  of  this  lighter  side  of  his 


62  MODERNITIES 

nature  is  to  be  found  in  his  correspondence  with  his 
sister.  Those  letters,  dashed  off  hurriedly  to  his 
u  dearest  Sa,"  written  with  that  complete  lack  of 
ceremony  which  is  the  sign  of  a  perfect  intimacy, 
show  with  what  zest  he  frequented  balls  and  water- 
parties,  dinners  and  soirees.  Yet  his  ambition  is  never 
far  in  the  background.  He  goes  to  the  House  of 
Commons,  hears  the  big  man  speak,  and  then  writes 
to  his  sister,  "  But  between  ourselves  I  could  floor 
them  all."  His  genius  for  conversation  is  historic, 
and  we  are  not  surprised  that  he  considered  that  the 
one  unforgivable  sin  was  to  be  a  bore.  He  had  not, 
it  is  true,  Gladstone's  habit  of  unburdening  himself 
freely  to  the  most  casual  of  acquaintances.  How 
many,  indeed,  were  there  of  his  intimates  who  had 
penetrated  into  the  secret  places  of  his  heart  ?  But 
over-much  sincerity  is  a  hindrance  to  the  art  of 
conversation  ;  and  many  of  his  most  brilliant  para- 
doxes were  thrown  off  as  an  evasive  retort  to  an 
impertinent  question.  When,  however,  we  come  to 
Disraeli's  social  and  private  life,  the  most  interesting 
question  that  presents  itself  is  that  of  his  relation  to 
his  wife.  Even  though  he  had  discoursed  in  Contarini 
Fleming  of  the  grand  passion  with  all  the  high-flown 
sentimentalism  of  the  age,  it  was  obviously  impossible 
for  him,  considering  the  disparity  of  their  ages,  to  be 
seriously  in  love  with  Mrs.  Disraeli ;  and  it  must 
have  seemed  that  he  had  been  forced  to  exchange 
the  poetry  of  the  mistress  for  the  prose  of  the  wife. 
Had  he  not,  about  ten  years  before  his  marriage, 
written    to  his  sister,  "  How  would  you  like   Lady 

B for   a   sister-in-law?     Clever,    .£25,000,  and 

domestic.  As  for  love,  all  my  friends  who  have 
married  for  love  either  beat  their  wives  or  live  apart 
from  them.  This  is  literally  true.  I  may  commit 
many  follies,  but  never  that  of  marrying  for  love, 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI     63 

which,  I  am  convinced,  cannot  but  be  a  guarantee  of 
infelicity."  Yet  this  union,  based  originally  on  mere 
policy  and  camaraderie,  was  eventually  crowned  with 
the  most  faithful  of  loves.  It  was  his  wife's  absorbing 
interest  in  his  career  that  supplied  the  link.  He  has 
himself  written  that  the  most  exquisite  moment  in  a 
man's  life  was  when  he  surprised  his  lady-love  reading 
the  manuscript  of  his  first  speech,  and  the  sympathy 
of  Mrs.  Disraeli  in  his  successes  may  well  have  given 
them  a  yet  further  charm.  The  situation  is  well 
expressed  in  the  remark  of  Mrs .  Disraeli's  :  "  You 
know  you  married  me  for  money,  and  I  know  that  if 
you  had  to  do  it  again  you  would  do  it  for  love." 

In  fact  the  warm  and  constant  affection  Disraeli 
lavished  on  his  wife  during  her  lifetime,  and  the 
poignant  grief  that  he  evinced  at  her  death,  furnish 
a  more  than  sufficient  refutation  to  those  who  persist 
in  regarding  him  as  a  mere  cynical  fortune-hunter. 
Disraeli,  like  Browning,  had 

11  Two  soul  sides,  one  to  face  the  world  with, 
One  to  show  a  woman  when  he  loves  her." 

In  the  other  departments  of  private  life  he  was 
likewise  exemplary.  His  hardness  was  limited  to 
politics  ;  he  was  the  most  dutiful  of  sons,  the  most 
affectionate  of  brothers,  the  most  faithful  of  friends. 
His  debts,  for  the  most  part,  were  incurred  by 
backing  the  bills  of  other  men.  His  touching  and 
romantic  friendship  for  Mrs.  Brydges  Williams,  the 
eccentric  old  Cornish  lady  who  gave  him  pecuniary 
assistance  at  a  critical  period  of  his  career,  is  well 
known.  The  story,  again,  of  the  Premier  and  his 
wife  dancing  a  Highland  jig  in  their  night  apparel 
on  hearing  of  the  success  of  an  old  friend,  shows  how 
little  the  bitter  struggles  of  politics  had  hardened  his 
heart.     Particularly   touching,    also,   is   the    mutual 


64  MODERNITIES 

affection  between  him  and  the  Queen,  that  sweetened 
his  last  years.  She  was,  as  we  read  in  a  letter  of 
Disraeli's  to  the  Marchioness  of  Ely,  "  the  best  friend 
he  had  in  the  world." 

But  Disraeli,  though  he  fulfilled  himself  in  many 
ways,  was  first  of  all  a  politician,  and  it  is  Disraeli 
the  politician  rather  than  Disraeli  the  man  of  letters, 
the  dandy,  or  the  human  being,  that  principally  pro- 
vokes our  interest.  What  were  his  real  views  on 
politics  ?  How  far  can  we  distinguish  between  the 
official  edition  of  himself  which  he  displayed  for 
public  inspection  and  the  original  that  he  alone  could 
read  ?  Given  his  policy,  how  far  was  it  justifiable, 
how  far  rational  ?  The  view  of  his  most  devoted, 
but  yet  in  reality,  quite  unappreciative,  admirers, 
that  throughout  a  political  career  of  over  half  a 
century  he  remained  consistently  and  absolutely 
faithful  to  his  original  ideals,  and  that  he  introduced 
into  politics  an  integrity  and  disinterestedness  that 
Parliament  had  rarely  witnessed,  is  even  more  absurd 
than  the  opinion  of  his  blind  and  malignant  enemies 
that  he  was  a  mere  charlatan  who  juggled  with  parties 
and  the  people  without  possessing  a  single  genuine 
political  faith  of  his  own.  Disraeli,  as  was  inevitable 
in  a  man  of  so  detached  and  unprejudiced  a  nature, 
simply  took  the  then  party  system  at  its  true  worth, 
and,  of  course,  realised  from  the  outset  that  before 
he  could  do  anything  worth  doing  he  must  first  obtain 
that  power  which  alone  could  give  him  the  oppor- 
tunity of  doing  it.  His  attack  on  Peel  was,  prima 
facie,  an  occasion  that  it  would  have  been  the  depth 
of  folly  to  have  missed,  and  Mr.  Birrell's  statement 
that  Disraeli  (*  ate  his  peck  of  dirt,"  and  his  com- 
parison of  him  to  Casanova,  is  mere  petulance.  For 
these  preliminary  stages  of  the  higher  politics  Disraeli 
was  admirably  fitted,  and  the  following  autobiographic 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI     65 

passages  from  Tancred  show  how  congenial  were  his 
Herculean  labours:  "To  be  the  centre  of  a  maze 
of  manoeuvres  was  his  empyrean,  and  while  he  recog- 
nised in  them  the  best  means  of  success  he  found  in 
their  exercise  a  means  of  constant  delight "  ;  and 
again,  " '  Intrigue,'  cried  the  young  prince,  using,  as 
was  his  custom,  a  superfluity  of  expression  both  of 
voice  and  hand  and  eyes,  '  intrigue,  it  is  life,  it  is  the 
only  thing.  If  you  wish  to  produce  a  result  you 
must  make  a  combination,  and  you  call  combination 
intrigue.' "  Disraeli  viewed  party  politics  from  the 
dispassionate  standpoint  of  a  chess-player,  "  playing 
off  the  proud  peers  like  pawns,"  skilfully  manoeuvring 
his  knights  and  bishops  beneath  the  shadow  of  the 
old  mediaeval  castles,  though  it  was  "  in  his  masterly 
manipulation  of  his  queen  "  that  he  really  surpassed 
himself.  What  a  contrast  to  Gladstone's  youthful 
frame  of  mind,  who  entered  politics  because  he  felt 
a  strong  moral  duty  to  defend  that  Church  which  he 
was  afterwards  partly  to  disestablish  against  the 
insidious  attacks  of  philosophic  Radicalism.  But 
Disraeli's  point  of  view  was,  after  all,  merely  that 
which  was  obvious  and  rational.  It  is  well  known 
that  in  Disraeli's  day  the  whole  efficiency  of  the  party 
system  as  a  means  of  carrying  on  the  government 
was  based  on  that  sagacious  inconsistency,  so  char- 
acteristic of  this  country,  which,  cheerfully  accom- 
modating the  most  untractable  of  facts  to  the  most 
docile  of  theories,  drew  between  the  two  parties  no 
clear  dividing  line  either  of  principle  or  of  class. 
Those  genuine  lines  of  cleavage  both  of  policy  and 
interest  that  now  tend  to  become  more  and  more 
clearly  marked  did  not  then  exist.  The  only  vital 
political  distinction  then  existing  in  England  was  that 
between  the  Ins  and  the  Outs.  Whigs  and  Tories 
were,  in  their  origin,  merely  the  names  for  the  two 

£ 


66  MODERNITIES 

rival  organisations  for  the  pursuit  of  political  power 
into  which  the  oligarchy  of  the  time  had  divided 
itself,  and  the  party  catch-words  then  indicated  as 
much  essential  difference  as  the  badges  by  which  the 
two  sides  of  a  "  scratch  "  game  symbolise  a  fictitious 
distinction. 

Particularly  interesting  is  the  following  quotation 
from  a  letter  of  Gladstone,  written  comparatively 
early  in  his  career,  which  shows  convincingly  that 
the  subsequent  democratic  idealist  fully  realised  the 
intrinsic  farce  of  the  then  party  system  :  "  Each  of 
them,  the  Whig  and  the  Tory  Party,  comprises  within 
itself  far  greater  divergencies  than  can  be  noticed 
as  dividing  the  more  moderate  portion  of  the  one 
from  the  more  moderate  portion  of  the  other.  The 
great  English  parties  differ  no  more  in  their  general 
outlines  than  by  a  somewhat  different  distribution 
of  the  same  elements  in  each."  It  is  impossible  for 
the  opportunist  position  to  be  more  cogently  stated. 
It  is,  indeed,  a  strange  paradox  that  political  integrity 
should  be  traditionally  associated  with  the  name 
of  Gladstone,  who  accomplished  more  than  any 
other  of  our  statesmen  in  changing  statesmanship 
into  demagogy.  His  pronouncedly  religious  tempera- 
ment, however,  led  to  extraordinary  results,  and 
his  psychological  condition  was  best  expressed  in 
the  well-known  epigram  that  "he  followed  his 
conscience  in  the  same  manner  that  the  driver  of 
a  gig  follows  the  horse."  It  was  not  that  he  was 
deliberately  insincere.  He  could  deceive  himself 
as  well  as  others  with  his  ingenious  sophisms.  His 
sincerity  was  merely  so  elastic,  his  enthusiasm  so 
adaptable,  that  he  found  it  easy  to  be  sincere  and 
enthusiastic,  inter  alia,  about  those  things  which 
coincided  with  his  interests. 

Carlyle    hits  the  mark    in    dubbing    Gladstone    a 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI     67 

deeper  and  unconscious  juggler  as  contrasted  with 
Disraeli,  the  clever,  conscious  juggler.  The  latter, 
at  any  rate,  played  the  game  straight  with  himself. 
He  did  not,  like  his  rival,  have  recourse  to  super- 
natural inspiration  for  every  argument  that  dropped 
from  his  specious  lips,  or  degrade  his  deity  into  a 
veritable  deus  ex  machtnd,  whose  function  it  was 
to  sanction  the  most  elementary  dictates  of  Parlia- 
mentary tactics. 

Yet,  though  he  exhibited  a  prudent  elasticity  in 
his  handling  of  the  minor  details  of  party  politics, 
in  the  main  outlines  of  his  policy  he  remained  con- 
sistent and  true  to  himself  throughout  his  career. 
The  romantic  strain  in  his  temperament  rendered 
him  congenitally  opposed  to  the  cut  and  dried 
utilitarianism  of  the  Whigs.  The  renovated  Toryism 
of  New  England,  for  which  he  was  largely  responsible, 
though  to  a  great  extent  merely  a  move  in  the  game, 
is  deeply  stamped  with  the  impress  of  his  own  nature. 
That  his  bias  was  naturally  aristocratic  no  one  can 
doubt  who  has  read  the  passage  in  The  Revolutionary 
Epicke  on  Equality,  or  has  appreciated  the  tone  of 
personal  superiority  and  contempt  for  the  mediocre 
that  pervades  all  his  writings.  His  Conservatism, 
however,  was  not  the  orthodox  Conservatism  of 
the  Eldon  school,  u  the  barren  mule  of  politics  which 
engenders  nothing,"  to  use  his  own  phrase,  but 
a  more  picturesque  and  practical  policy.  He  poured 
successfully  the  new  wine  of  Democracy  into  the 
old  bottles  of  Toryism,  and  thus,  while  no  doubt 
indulging  the  more  romantic  side  of  his  nature, 
placed  his  party  on  a  more  modern  and  workable 
basis.  Disraeli's  policy,  in  fact,  was  always  one 
of  sane  and  rational  opportunism.  In  the  same  way 
that  Gambetta,  the  exponent  of  French  Opportunism, 
opposed    "a    policy    of    results    to    the    policy    of 


68  MODERNITIES 

chimeras  "  of  the  reactionaries,  Disraeli  opposed  to 
Gladstone's  dangerous  and  visionary  ideals  a  policy 
that  was  at  once  feasible  and  salutary.  Disraeli 
invariably  treated  England  as  a  definite  country  with 
a  definite  personality  of  its  own,  requiring  individual 
attention  and  delicate  handling,  while  Gladstone 
regarded  her  as  a  mere  tabula  rasa  on  which  the 
latest  new-fangled  doctrines  could  be  easily  imprinted. 
Precisely  the  same  spirit  induced  Gladstone  to  treat 
the  Queen  as  a  department  of  State  and  Disraeli 
to  treat  her  as  a  woman.  In  home  politics  he  has 
grasped  well  that  transition  from  feudal  to  federal 
principles  which  was  the  keynote  of  the  last  century 
politics.  His  detractors  object  that  no  great  measures 
stand  identified  with  his  name  ;  but  here  the  fates 
were  against  him.  It  was  a  cruel  paradox  that 
when  at  last  he  obtained  an  untrammelled  power 
he  was  too  old  and  jaded  to  initiate  any  new  creative 
measure  in  domestic  affairs.  I  quote  Mrs.  Disraeli  : 
"  You  don't  know  my  Dizzy  ;  what  great  plans 
he  has  long  matured  for  the  good  and  greatness  of 
England.  But  they  have  made  him  wait  and  drudge 
so  long,  and  now  time  is  against  him."  In  his  foreign 
policy,  however,  he  displayed  his  characteristic  com- 
bination of  practical  and  imaginative  strength.  In 
the  same  spirit  in  which  he  himself  had  obtained  the 
foremost  place  in  England,  he  desired  that  England 
should  acquire  the  foremost  rank  among  the  nations  ; 
while,  as  is  shown  by  his  Imperial  policy,  he  infused 
something  of  his  own  picturesqueness  into  the  policy 
of  the  most  prosaic  Power  in  Europe.  His  Indian 
policy,  in  particular,  proves  with  what  practical  im- 
agination he  had  divined  how  much  lay  in  a  name, 
and  that  to  the  feudatory  princes  it  meant  all  the 
difference  whether  they  paid  their  allegiance  to  the 
Queen  of  England  or  to  the  Empress  of  India. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DISRAELI    69 

Disraeli's  master-passion  was  ambition.  But  he 
was  no  monomaniac  like  Napoleon.  In  the  same 
way  that  Sidonia,  the  complete  and  perfect  man, 
according  to  Disraeli,  played  with  a  master-hand 
on  the  whole  gamut  of  life,  so  did  Disraeli,  though 
in  a  lesser  scale,  live  largely  and  fully.  He  lived 
in  the  solitudes  of  the  Arabian  deserts  and  in  the 
crowded  drawing-rooms  of  St.  James's  ;  in  the  halls 
of  Westminster  and  the  shady  quietude  of  Braden- 
ham  ;  in  the  privacy  of  his  own  study,  and  in  the 
historic  chambers  of  Downing  Street.  To  few  men 
has  it  been  given  to  express  themselves  in  so  many 
different  ways.  What  matter  if  his  feats  of  states- 
manship were  restricted  by  the  limitations  of  the 
Parliamentary  system  and  the  handicap  of  his  own 
failing  health  ?  To  such  a  nature  the  joy  of  life 
lay  rather  in  the  winning  than  in  the  using  of  the 
prize.  It  is  the  romance  and  character  of  the  man 
that  perpetuate  his  memory  rather  than  his  political 
achievements.  He  lives  as  a  great  career.  When 
yet  a  boy  he  had  mapped  out  his  future,  and  he 
realised  his  ambition  in  every  detail.  By  sheer 
force  of  intellect  and  determination  he  lifted  himself 
from  the  Ghetto  to  the  highest  position  in  England. 
As  he  himself  said,  in  one  of  Mrs.  Craigie's  novels  : 
"  Many  men  have  talent ;  few  have  genius  ;  fewer 
still  have  character." 


THE   GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS 
I 

The  Genealogy  of  Morals:  a  Polemic!  Nietzsche 
was  well  advised  to  append  the  word  "  polemic  "  to 
his  title,  for  it  supplies  the  key  to  his  whole  position. 
To  some  extent,  no  doubt,  the  '*  Genealogy "  may 
be  the  expression  in  more  philosophic  language  of 
those  ideas,  which  find  in  Zarathustra  their  poetic 
and  almost  biblical  formulation.  Yet  philosopher 
though  he  may  be,  Nietzsche  is  no  abstract  thinker 
sitting  down  stolidly  on  some  icy  height  to  solve 
the  riddle  of  the  universe,  whatever  it  may  be,  by 
the  rigid  rules  of  abstract  logic,  so  that  he  may 
placidly  present  the  solution  to  such  members  of 
the  public  as  happen  to  be  interested  in  metaphysics. 
On  the  contrary  his  mind,  and  even  more  truly 
his  temperament,  are  made  up  from  the  outset. 
Certain  ideas  grip  him  so  tensely,  and  for  him,  at 
any  rate,  constitute  so  fiery  and  omnipresent  a 
reality,  as  to  be  from  his  standpoint  things  transcend- 
ing the  mere  cavillings  of  logicians  and  scientists. 

"  You  ask  me  why,"  says  Zarathustra,  "  but  I  say 
unto  you  I  am  not  one  of  those  whom  one  may 
ask  their  why." 

The  same  idea  is  more  technically  expressed  in 
the  preface  to  the  Genealogy — "  that  new  immoral, 
or  at  least,  '  amoral '  a  priori,  and  that  '  categorical 
imperative,'  which  was  its  voice  (but,  oh  !  how 
hostile  to  the  Kantian  article,  and  how  pregnant 
with  problems),  to   which   since  then  I    have   given 

70 


GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS        71 

more  and  more  obedience  (and,  indeed,  what  is 
more  than  obedience)."  For,  startling  though  it 
may  seem  to  the  orthodox,  albeit  acceptable  enough 
to  the  acolytes  of  the  new  faith,  the  fact  stands  out 
irresistibly,  that  all  the  later  writings  of  Nietzsche 
are  saturated  through  and  through  with  the  religious 
spirit. 

For  Nietzsche  was  inspired  with  as  supreme  a 
consciousness  of  the  infallibility  and  paramount 
necessity  of  his  message,  as  rigid  a  belief  in  exclusive 
salvation  through  his  own  teachings,  as  has  over- 
whelmed the  brain  of  any  prophet  or  Messiah  known 
to  human  history.  u  I  have  given  mankind  the 
deepest  book  it  possesses,"  writes  Nietzsche  to 
Brandes,  and  means  it  quite  deliberately  and  quite 
literally.  The  content,  indeed,  of  the  religion  of  this 
converse  Christ  may  be  diametrically  opposed  to  that 
of  the  original,  but  the  machinery  is  the  same.  With 
the  same  exalted  spirit  in  which  Jesus  preached  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  so  did  Nietzsche  preach  the  king- 
dom of  this  earth,  while  it  may  be  noted  incidentally 
that  both  kingdoms  were  the  perquisites  of  a  select 
few  ;  and  as  the  spurned  god  of  Israel  taught  self- 
abasement  to  the  weak  with  an  intensity  that,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  seems  a  little  extravagant  to  our  modern 
taste,  so  does  Nietzsche,  and  with  every  whit  as 
honest  a  fanaticism,  thunder  forth  to  the  strong  the 
sublime  dogma  of  self-expression  and  self-glorifica- 
tion. Turn,  in  fact,  the  doctrines  of  Christianity 
upside  down,  but  leave  constant  the  missionary  en- 
thusiasm of  its  founder,  his  chronic  fits  of  extreme 
depression  and  extreme  exaltation,  and  you  have  the 
quintessence  of  Nietzsche. 

As,  however,  it  is  the  boast  of  all  religions  that 
they  are  beyond  the  realms  of  exact  logic  and 
empirical  science,  it  would  be  as  unfair  to  look  in  our 


72  MODERNITIES 

prophet's  polemic  for  the  mathematical  accuracy  of  a 
Euclidian  proposition,  as  it  would  be  to  search  for 
such  accuracy  amid  the  many  grandiose  and  tragic 
thoughts  that  loom  over  the  invectives  of  Isaiah, 
Jesus,  and  Jeremiah. 

Not,  indeed,  but  what  there  are  many  new,  swift, 
and  illuminating  truths  in  our  philosopher's  gospel, 
just  as  there  were  in  the  pronouncements  of  his  afore- 
said Hebrew  brethren.  But  the  essence,  the  raison 
d'etre  of  the  whole  book  is  purely  polemical. 
Nietzsche  is  out  to  kill,  and  so  long  as  his  weapons 
effectually  subserve  that  object,  he  is,  and  quite  logi- 
cally, indifferent  to  aught  else. 

Before,  however,  we  analyse  in  detail  the  phil- 
osophy of  this  book,  it  is  advisable  to  adjust  our  sights 
to  those  particular  targets  on  which  Nietzsche  trained 
his  gigantic  and  murderous  artillery.  We  shall  also 
have  a  better  prospect  of  getting  really  into  touch  with 
"the  very  inner  pulse  of  the  machine,"  the  real  core 
of  this  philosophy,  if  we  take  a  necessarily  short,  but  it 
is  to  be  hoped  none  the  less  vivid,  glance  at  those 
reasons  which  induced  Nietzsche  to  envisage  the 
objects  of  his  attack  with  so  tense  and  implacable  a 
hatred. 

Now  Nietzsche  found  his  intellectual  jumping-off 
ground  in  that  hybrid  of  Christianity  and  Buddhism 
stuck  on  a  pedestal  of  sex,  which  constituted  the 
philosophy  of  Schopenhauer  and  the  essence  of  the 
fashionable  pessimism  of  mid-century  Germany.  To 
endeavour  to  condense  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
elaborate  systems  of  the  last  century  into  a  few  words 
is  at  best  a  delicate  and  hazardous  task,  yet  perhaps 
we  may  adumbrate  tentatively  the  radical  elements 
which  spurred  Nietzsche  to  so  sanguinary  a  revolt. 

Life  according  to  Schopenhauer  was  a  sorry 
failure,  a  thing  not  worth  living  on  its  merits,  but 


GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS        73 

kept  going  by  the  driving  impetus  of  a  blind  life-force 
and  knit  with  a  mutual  pity.  Life  then  being  intrin- 
sically evil,  the  remedy  for  the  evil  was  to  live  as 
little  as  possible — "  Draw  your  desire  back  from  the 
world  so  that  there  may  be  an  end  of  that  phe- 
nomenal life  which  is  nothing  but  grief."  Apart 
from  general  asceticism,  there  were  two  specific 
anodynes  prescribed  by  Schopenhauer  for  the  disease 
called  life — art  which  transcended  life,  and  lifted  the 
spectator  or  listener  on  to  another  plane,  and  phil- 
osophy which,  as  it  were,  blunted  the  sting  of  life  by 
the  contemplation  of  the  essentially  unreal  nature  of 
the  phenomenal  universe.  But  the  greatest  good 
was  Nirvana,  a  kind  of  Pantheistic  Absolute  of  nega- 
tivity, into  which  one  eventually  merged,  to  enjoy  the 
supreme  paradox  of  a  peaceful  self-consciousness  of 
one's  own  nothingness. 

It  is  easy  for  us  to  sneer,  nowadays,  at  this  bilious 
and  suicidal  system,  and  to  explain  the  whole  theory 
of  the  Will  to  Live  by  the  keen  and  chronic  tyranny 
which  the  sexual  instinct  exercised  over  the  phil- 
osopher himself  ;  the  fact  remained,  Schopenhauer 
was  the  dominant  influence  of  the  day — how  dominant, 
can  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  the  whole  of  later 
Wagnerian  music  is  merely  a  translation  of  his  phil- 
osophy into  the  language  of  sound.  It  is  easy  to  see 
the  extent  to  which  Schopenhauer  and  Wagner  were 
saturated  with  the  whole  spirit  of  primitive  and 
mediaeval  Christianity.  Human  life,  forsooth,  is 
essentially  bad  and  essentially  unreal  ;  salvation  only 
lies  in  the  mortification  and  annihilation  of  the  self. 
Apart,  however,  from  philosophical  and  theological 
technicalities,  the  profound  psychological  import  of 
this  nihilistic  pessimism  and  neo-Christian  romanticism 
is  patent.  Man  looks  at  man's  life  on  earth,  and 
gives  "Mr  up   as   a  bad  job,   or  at  best  makes  some 


74  MODERNITIES 

fantastic  effort  to  create  a  new  world  to  redress  the 
balance  of  the  old.  "They  wanted  to  run  away 
from  their  misery,  and  the  stars  were  too  far  away. 
Then  they  sighed,  Oh,  that  there  were  heavenly 
ways,  forsooth,  to  slink  into  another  Being  and 
Happiness." 

It  has,  in  fact,  been  well  put  that,  as  the  motto  of 
Goethe  was  "Memento  vivere,"  so  was  the  motto  of 
Schopenhauer,  "  Memento  mori." 

Now,  Nietzsche  voiced  the  revolt  of  those  tempera- 
ments whose  ears  were  attuned  rather  to  **  Memento 
vivere  "  than  "  Memento  mori."  We  must  remember, 
moreover,  that  that  Christian  romanticism  which 
finds  its  best  metaphysical  formulation  in  Schopen- 
hauer was  in  itself  but  a  reaction  from  the  real  spirit 
of  the  century,  that  ebullience  and  exuberance  of  the 
human  ego  of  which  Stendhal  is  perhaps  the  most 
typical  manifestation.  It  might  well  indeed  be  in- 
structive to  trace  the  intellectual  descent  of  Nietzsche 
from  Stendhal,  and,  applying  again  the  sociological 
method,  to  speculate  as  to  how  far  he  derived  some 
of  the  impetus  for  his  philosophy  of  egoism  from  the 
aggressive  wars  of  Prussia,  as  exemplified  in  the 
Sadowa  campaign  and  the  Franco-German  war.  It 
is  time,  however,  that  we  came  to  the  temperament 
of  the  philosopher  himself.  It  is  indeed  a  platitude, 
that  as  man  makes  his  gods  in  his  own  image,  so 
does  the  philosopher  create  his  systems.  What  is 
Aristotle's  ideal  of  the  /3/o?  deooprjrucos,  and  his  con- 
ception of  the  self-contemplative  god  but  the  erection 
into  a  universal  norm  of  the  thinker's  natural  philo- 
sophic idiosyncrasy  ?  What  is  the  elaborate  "  I  and 
Me  "  of  the  cosmology  of  Fichte  but  the  attribution 
to  the  universe  of  the  personal  idiosyncrasies  of 
Fichte,  the  self-conscious  Doppelganger  ?  And  how 
Schopenhauer  promoted  sex  into  the  devil,  whose  heat 


GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS        75 

animates  this  earthly  hell,  we  have  already  seen.  What, 
then,  was  the  impetus  which  impelled  Nietzsche  to 
batter  down  the  walls  of  the  contemporary  moral  and 
philosophic  universe  ?  The  theory  of  an  innate  joie  de 
vivre,  a  system  highly  if  not  over-charged  with  vitality, 
supplies  but  half  the  answer.  The  real  explanation 
lies  in  the  stiffening  of  this  natural  exuberance  be- 
neath the  tension  of  a  grim  incessant  struggle  with 
a  nervous  malady. 

It  is  not  actually  necessary  to  go  as  far  as  the 
Swedish  writer,  M.  Bjerre,  who  finds  in  Nietzsche's 
deliberate  and  revolutionary  transvaluation  of  values 
that  break  up  of  the  cerebral  system  from  its  previous 
condition  which  signalises  the  earlier  stages  of  general 
paralysis.  Yet  Nietzsche's  own  writings,  particularly 
his  letters,  reveal  how  potent  was  the  stimulus  exer- 
cised on  his  ego  by  those  nervous  headaches  which 
hounded  him  over  the  Continent.  To  prevent  defeat 
his  will  had  to  be  perpetually  strained  to  the  maximum 
pitch  of  tension.  The  sweets  of  comfort  being  denied 
him,  the  only  alternative  left  was  to  find  a  kind  of 
super-happiness  in  the  ecstasies  and  exultations  of 
that  Titanic  contest  which  was  perpetually  fought  on 
the  battlefield  of  his  own  person.  Let  him  speak  for 
himself :  "  I  made  of  my  wish  to  get  well,  to  live, 
my  philosophy — it  should,  in  fact,  be  noted — the 
years  when  my  vitality  descended  to  its  minimum 
were  those  when  I  ceased  to  be  a  pessimist." 

We  have  not,  however,  at  this  juncture  space 
to  elaborate  further  the  theory  of  the  superman.  Let 
it  be  enough  to  say  that  it  is  the  raising  to  the  «th 
power  of  the  spirit  of  struggling  and  aggressive  effi- 
ciency, and  the  venting  of  an  over-full  vitality  by  the 
creation  of  new  values  out  of  the  wealth  of  the  indi- 
vidual ego.  As,  however,  the  glorification  of  strength 
involves,  and  logically  so,  the  degradation  of  weak- 


76  MODERNITIES 

ness,  and  u  to  build  up  a  sanctuary  it  is  necessary  for 
a  sanctuary  to  be  destroyed,"  it  is  not  surprising  that 
Nietzsche  should  clear  the  ground  for  his  new  creations 
by  a  ferocious  bombardment  of  the  crumbling  ruins 
that  still  encumbered  the  site.  Schopenhauer,  who 
had  been  the  fount  from  which  Nietzsche's  philo- 
sophic youth  had  drawn  its  inspiration  before,  as  it 
were,  he  had  found  him  out,  is  always  treated  with  a 
certain  amount  of  respect.  But  the  arch-enemy  was 
the,  to  him,  poisonous  system  of  altruism,  self-anni- 
hilation, and  world-renouncement  which  was  called 
Christianity. 

The  cynical  may  smile  at  the  inordinate  and  con- 
centrated frenzy  of  this  attack.  "  Is  not  your  wildly 
militant  prophet  simply  wasting  his  powder  and  shot  ? 
Who  in  his  senses  ever  heard  of  Christianity  being 
taken  au  pied  de  la  lettre,  even  by  the  most  orthodox 
of  modern  bishops  ?  What  is  it,  to  use  another 
metaphor,  but  flogging  a  dead  horse  ?  "  To  which 
Nietzsche's  answer  would  be  that  it  is  by  removing 
the  foundations  that  you  remove  also  the  super- 
structure, or  to  translate  our  metaphor,  "  Let  me  kill 
Christianity,  and  I  kill  at  the  same  time  all  that  system 
of  altruism  for  altruism's  sake,  of  abstract  truth  for 
the  sake  of  abstract  truth,  which  is  built  on  that 
hateful  foundation."  It  may  also  be  observed  that, 
even  apart  from  the  poetic  and  prophetic  licence  to 
which  a  man  writing  under  such  circumstances  would 
be  legitimately  entitled,  there  are  even  now  not 
wanting  people  who  do  in  point  of  fact  take  Chris- 
tianity with  all  the  implicit  seriousness  of  the  medi- 
aeval monks  or  the  early  Fathers.  It  is,  indeed,  a 
phenomenon  not  without  a  certain  intrinsic  humour, 
that  almost  at  the  very  moment  when  Tolstoi  was 
making  his  pathetic  efforts  to  resuscitate  literal  Chris- 
tianity with  the  abortive  tears  of  pity,  Nietzsche  should 


GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS        77 

swing  along  to  flagellate  the  semi-inanimate  ghost  of 
the  bleeding  God,  in  no  monkish  spirit,  forsooth,  but 
with  all  the  grim  and  scientific  energy  of  the  most 
enthusiastic  of  executioners,  compared  to  whom  Vol- 
taire was  but  the  most  urbane  of  wits,  and  Heine  the 
most  innocuous  of  schoolboys.  Having  thus  taken 
a  brief  view  of  the  targets,  and  of  the  implacable  and 
very  serious  spirit  that  animates  the  assailant,  let  us 
glance  briefly  at  the  chief  lines  of  attack. 


II 

The  first  essay  of  the  Genealogy  consists  of  an 
essay  on  "  Good  and  Evil,  Good  and  Bad."  The  line 
of  attack  is  double,  being  first  etymological,  and 
secondly  historical. 

Without  going  into  philological  exactitudes,  it  is, 
we  think,  fairly  safe  to  follow  Nietzsche  in  his  theory 
that  the  word  u  good  "  and  its  analogues  were  origin- 
ally applied  to  designate  those  qualities  which  were 
peculiar  to  the  governing  aristocratic  classes,  albeit 
qualities  by  no  means  susceptible  of  the  title  of 
u  ethical  "  goodness.  Physical  valour  being  in  primi- 
tive times  the  most  valuable  asset  of  the  community, 
it  is  not  unnatural  that  that  quality  should  be  held  in 
universal  esteem.  We  would  remark,  however,  in 
passing,  that  though  Nietzsche  professes  to  make  a 
flying  expedition  into  the  domain  of  early  Greek 
ethics,  which  would  appear,  according  to  his  teach- 
ings, to  be  represented  as  an  ideal  system  worthy  of 
modern  imitation,  he  is  apparently  oblivious  to.  the 
fact  that  the  spirit  of  cunning  prudence,  of  which  he 
so  emphatically  disapproves,  was  one  of  the  most 
admired  qualities  of  primitive  Greece. 

On  the  general  question,  however,  we  may  per- 
haps supplement  Nietzsche's  by  Spencer's  argument 


78  MODERNITIES 

on  the  meaning  of  the  English  word  "good,"  which, 
as  is  notorious,  has  the  double  meaning  of  u  ethical " 
and  "  efficient."  Instructive,  however,  though  this 
argument  is,  it  cannot  be  said  to  clinch  the  question, 
since,  even  in  the  times  of  ancient  Greece,  there  were 
not  wanting  words  such  as  Kakos,  a&rvfiot,  oaios  to 
denote,  albeit  mostly  in  aesthetic  terminology,  that 
ethical  meaning,  of  which  the  word  ayados  fell  so 
signally  short.  In  other  words,  to  use  Nietzschean 
terminology,  the  ethical  taint  even  then  existed, 
though  in  a  less  virulent  form. 

The  other  line  of  attack,  however,  is  more  serious, 
and  penetrates  to  the  very  core  of  the  modern  moral 
system  with  its  savage  onslaught  on  Christianity. 
What  is  Christianity,  says  Nietzsche,  but  the  revolt 
of  the  slaves  in  the  sphere  of  morals  ?  Our  phil- 
osopher's suggestion,  of  course,  that  Christianity  was 
a  deliberate  stratagem  on  the  part  of  a  revengeful 
Israel  to  square  accounts  with  the  conqueror,  has,  on 
the  face  of  it,  no  claim  to  serious  consideration  as 
anything  but  a  poetic  thought.  The  fact,  however, 
that  Christianity  from  its  beginning  catered  avowedly 
for  the  poor,  the  weak,  the  oppressed,  the  inefficient, 
is  admittedly  true,  whatever  disputes  may  range  as  to 
the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  this  fact.  And  that 
the  accusation  of  being  a  slave-morality  is  something 
more  than  empty  abuse,  is  substantiated  by  the 
numerous  slaves  who  did,  in  fact,  subscribe  to  the 
infant  creed.  It  is,  moreover,  not  without  its  interest 
to  watch  nowadays  a  recurrence  of  the  same  phe- 
nomenon. Just,  indeed,  as  at  present  the  proletariate 
are  ipso  facto  ready  to  believe,  quite  apart  from  any 
question  of  any  economic  justification  of  the  doctrine, 
in  the  genuine  iniquity  of  the  rich  capitalist,  so  in  the 
early  Christian  era  the  proletariate  were  not  reluc- 
tant to  put  their  faith  in  the  saying,  that,  li  it  was  as 


GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS        79 

easy  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle 
as  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 
The  difference,  however,  between  modern  and  ancient 
Christianity  stands  out  clearly  from  the  fact  that 
though  this  identical  creed  is  invoked  with  something 
approaching  equal  facility  on  the  sides  both  of  the 
angels  and  the  devils,  it  is,  on  the  whole,  now  identi- 
fied with  the  richer  and  more  prosperous  classes. 

It  must,  however,  be  frankly  admitted  that  Nietzsche 
somewhat  overshoots  the  mark,  both  in  dubbing  the 
history  of  the  world  a  conflict  between  the  two 
ideals,  of  Rome  and  Judaea,  the  egoistic  and  altruistic 
ideals,  and  in  asseverating  that  the  primitive  u  beast 
of  prey  prowling  avidly  after  booty  and  victory  "  was 
the  only  type  of  the  human  species  worthy  of  ad- 
miration, and  that  the  tamed  modern  species  is 
but  a  diseased  distortion.  We  will  deal]  later  with 
the  lacuna  caused  in  Nietzsche's  philosophy  by  his 
refusal  to  recognise  the  true  significance  of  the 
Aristotelian  doctrine  that  man  is  a  ^wov  ttoXltikov 
when  we  show  that  even  from  his  own  standpoint 
the  modern  state  of  man  is  preferable  to  the  primal. 
Suffice  it  for  the  present  to  say  that,  however  large  a 
part  of  the  truth  Nietzsche  captured  with  this  potent 
theory,  there  remains  a  not  inconsiderable  part  which 
still  eluded  him. 

Ill 

Having  endeavoured  thus  to  dispose  of  the  "  ethi- 
cally good  "  and  "  ethically  bad  "  by  the  theory  that 
such  ideas  are  merely  distortions  of  the  ideas  of 
"  practically  good  and  practically  bad,"  Nietzsche  in 
the  second  essay  of  the  Genealogy  makes  a  similar 
effort  to  take  the  sting  out  of  the  ideas  of  "  Schuld  " 
(guilt,  debt),  and  "  schlechtes  Gewissen  "  (bad  con- 
science).   But  here,  again,  difficulties  beset  our  revolu- 


80  MODERNITIES 

tionary.  He  approves  of  responsibility  and  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  promise,  but  disapproves  of  the  bad  con- 
science by  which  the  individual  would  enforce  these 
things  on  himself.  He  blesses  justice,  but  damns  the 
social  system.  We  shall  find  it  hard  to  follow  him  in 
his  attempted  reconciliation  of  these  divergent  stand- 
points. When,  for  instance,  he  alludes  with  almost 
paternal  approbation  to  the  savage  mnemonics  by 
which  the  M  conscience  "  (per  se)  was  produced,  and 
then  proceeds  to  an  envenomed,  if  none  the  less 
brilliant  polemic  against  the  u  bad  conscience,"  we  see 
that  in  reality  it  is  not  so  much  the  existence  of  a 
conscience  qua  conscience,  to  which  he  objects,  but 
the  existence  of  a  conscience  functioning  on  what  he 
conceives  to  be  a  vicious  basis.  Indeed,  even  the 
most  faithful  of  our  prophet's  disciples  would  admit 
that  the  Nietzschean  teaching  lays  down  as  thorny 
and  toilsome  a  path  for  the  u  bold,  bad  man,"  or 
ubermensch,  as  Christianity  ever  decreed  for  the  good 
man  or  weakling.  The  only  difference,  in  fact, 
between  Nietzschean  and  Christian  ethics  is  that 
between  excessive  self-affirmation  and  excessive  self- 
negation.  But  one  has  only  to  read  Zarathustra  to 
realise  immediately  that  this  self-affirmation  is  no 
heedless  hedonism,  but  a  tense  and  chronic  struggle 
of  the  ego  against  the  world,  subject  to  as  rigid 
rules  and  braving  as  intense  martyrdoms  as  does  the 
Christian  struggle  of  the  spirit  against  the  flesh.  We 
may  say,  in  fact,  that  on  an  officially  Nietzschean 
basis  the  "  bad  "  man  who  fails  in  being  thoroughly 
and  perfectly  bad  is,  and  apparently  properly  so, 
subject  to  as  poignant  pangs  as  is  the  "  good  "  man 
who  fails  in  being  thoroughly  and  perfectly  good. 

Granted,  however,  that  it  is  the  content  of  the  bad 
conscience  rather  than  the  existence  of  a  bad  con- 
science per  se,  which  provokes  his  righteous  indigna- 


GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS         81 

tion,  let  us  make  some  attempt  to  see  how  far 
Nietzsche  is  logical  in  condemning,  as  he  does,  exist- 
ing ethics  as  the  bastard  child  of  contract  and  re- 
venge, thriving  amid  a  civilisation  which  has  no  real 
right  to  exist.  Nietzsche  starts  off  in  fine  feather  to 
prove  that  the  word  "  Schuld "  (guilt)  is  the  same 
as  the  word  u  Schuld  "  (debt),  as  though  that  momen- 
tous piece  of  philological  research  crushed  all  ethics 
once  and  for  all.  We  do  not  for  a  moment  dispute 
the  philology.  Moreover,  as  far  as  the  general  prin- 
ciple is  concerned,  it  had  been  previously  pointed 
out  by  Maine  that  all  crimes  were  in  their  origin 
torts — that  is  to  say,  private  wrongs  against  the  indi- 
vidual (though  doubts  as  to  how  far  this  theory  is 
to  be  carried  are  raised  by  the  universal  execration 
which  even  in  the  most  primitive  societies  was  visited 
on  murderers  like  Cain  or  Orestes). 

It  may,  moreover,  be  true  that  in  many  cases  the 
local  god  is  simply  a  deceased  ancestor  promoted  to 
a  heavenly  status,  who  requires  payment  for  protect- 
ing his  descendants.  But  such  arguments  can  at 
the  best  merely  have  effect  on  the  theological  concep- 
tion of  morality  as  a  divine  ordinance  descending 
immediately  from  heaven.  From  the  sociological 
standpoint,  indeed,  to  derive  "  ethics "  from  "  con- 
tract "  is  simply  to  consolidate  one  phase  of  the 
social  instinct  by  deriving  it  from  another.  As, 
however,  has  been  hinted  before,  it  was  the  theo- 
logical conception  that  was  Nietzsche's  main  objective. 
So  long  as  he  could  kill  that,  he  was  indifferent  to 
the  price,  if,  indeed,  his  morbidly  classic  and  aristo- 
cratic standpoint  did  not  hold  that  the  taint  of  the 
bourgeois  and  the  fidvavaos  attached  automatically  to 
everything  commercial. 

The  shifts,  however,  to  which  Nietzsche  is  driven 
are  well  illustrated  when  we  come  to   that   further 

F 


82  MODERNITIES 

stage  in  his  evolution  of  the  moral  idea,  which 
consists  in  deriving  modern  ethics  or  the  a  bad 
conscience  "  from  the  principle  of  "  resentment "  or 
"  revenge,"  which  is  alleged  to  be  a  totally  distinct 
thing  from  the  "active  feeling"  by  which  Justice 
enforces  its  sanctions.  But  with  all  due  respect  to 
Nietzsche  and  his  official  expounders,  we  find  it 
hard  to  appreciate  any  real  difference  in  principle 
between  the  various  drastic  measures  by  which  the 
social  organism  enforces  its  decree.  The  punishment 
for  murder,  we  suggest,  would  be  equally  death  both 
in  a  Nietzschean  and  in  a  non-Nietzschean  state,  and 
how  anything  more  than  the  merest  verbal  distinction 
is  achieved  by  labelling  one  sanction  the  "  active 
emotion  of  justice  "  and  the  other  "  the  principle  of 
resentment "  we  are  frankly  at  a  loss  to  conceive. 
We  can  only  say  that  the  basing  of  the  ''bad  con- 
science "  on  the  spirit  of  revenge  is  true  in  the  sense 
that  from  one  aspect  the  function  of  the  social 
organism  is  to  protect  the  many  against  the  few  by 
the  enforcements  of  drastic  punishments  against 
its  transgressors.  That,  moreover,  the  strong  are 
unduly  restricted  to  pamper  the  weak  is  an  arguable 
proposition,  how  arguable,  can  be  seen  from  the 
present  volubility  of  the  financially  strong  when 
menaced  nowadays  with  taxation  for  the  benefit 
of  the  financially  weak.  But  to  go  to  the  length  of 
saying  that  the  whole  social  fabric  is  a  morbid 
distortion,  a  thing  intrinsically  bad,  a  kind  of  quasi- 
theological  fall  from  an  ideal  state  of  primitive 
anarchy,  is,  at  the  most  charitable  estimate,  a  mere 
piece  of  poetic  extravagance.  Yet  to  this  length 
Nietzsche  goes  when  he  pictures  his  blonde  primaeval 
beast  swung  into  "  new  situations  and  conditions  of 
existence "  ;  in  other  words,  into  the  **  pale  of 
society    with  a    spring  and    rush."      The    apparent 


GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS        83 

suddenness  of  the  transition  strikes  us,  indeed,  as  naif 
as  the  philosophy  of  Rousseau  or  of  Hobbes,  who 
actually  conceived  the  social  contract  as  a  specific 
bargain  entered  into  at  a  specific  time. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  parts,  however,  of  the 
whole  essay  is  Nietzsche's  explanation  of  the  u  bad 
conscience  "  as  the  result  of  the  primitive  energy  of 
the  savage  venting  itself  in  psychological  self-torture 
when  debarred  from  its  natural  outlet  of  physical 
violence.  "  All  instincts  which  do  not  vent  them- 
selves without  vent  themselves  within,"  so  runs  the 
dictum  of  the  prophet,  a  dictum  no  doubt  of  great 
psychological  truth,  and  capable  of  concrete  illus- 
tration when  applied  to  nuns,  monks,  and  other 
ascetics,  or  to  definite  cases  of  neurotic  introspection, 
but  clearly  not  deserving  to  be  treated  as  the  key  to 
the  whole  social  fabric. 

We  have  already  remarked  that  the  real  weakness 
of  the  Nietzschean  philosophy  lay  in  the  neglect  of 
the  Aristotelian  theory  that  man  was  a  tyov  ttoXitikov 
or  a  social  animal.  Let  us  resume  this  line  of  inquiry. 
Nietzsche  does,  it  is  true,  refer  to  the  "  herd  instinct " 
of  the  weak,  but  only  to  exhibit  his  very  palpable 
contempt  against  the  weak  who  herd  together  so  as 
to  be  able  effectually  to  combat  the  strong.  A  yet 
further  proof  of  Nietzsche's  bitter  hatred  of  the  social 
organism  is  supplied  by  the  celebrated  phrases  in 
Zaratliustra,  "  as  little  state  as  possible,"  and  u  the 
slow  suicide  which  we  call  the  state."  In  our  view, 
however,  the  real  test  of  Nietzsche's  position  is 
touched  when  we  come  to  the  position  of  the  aristo- 
cratic strong  man.  "Are  they,"  one  wonders,  "  tainted 
or  untainted  with  the  herd  instinct  ?  "  Nietzsche's 
answer  to  this  question  seems  to  be  that,  so  far  as 
concerns  the  vast  bulk  of  the  herd,  they  are  inimical 
to  the  social  instinct,  but  that  none  the  less  they  find 


84  MODERNITIES 

social  organisation  (apparently  that  identical  state 
which  we  have  seen  spoken  of  as  "  slow  suicide ") 
necessary,  not  only  for  keeping  the  herd  in  proper 
order,  but  for  the  purpose  of  "  their  own  fight  with 
other  complexes  of  power."  Viewed  impartially,  how- 
ever, it  does  not  seem  to  us  that  Nietzsche  pays  suf- 
ficient importance  to  the  universality  and  value  of 
the  social  instinct.  Perhaps  the  root  of  the  whole 
matter  lies  in  the  fact  that  Nietzsche  fixes  apparently 
the  human  unit  as  the  individual,  whereas,  in  point 
of  fact,  it  is  that  state  in  miniature,  the  family.  The 
origin  of  the  family  may  no  doubt  be  found  in  the 
primaeval  instincts  of  sex  and  parentship.  None  the 
less,  it  is  an  indisputed  sociological  fact  that  the  family, 
or  its  larger  manifestation  the  tribe,  is,  as  is  evident 
from  the  slightest  perusal  of  the  works  of  Darwin, 
Maine,  or  Westermarck,  the  primitive  form  of  human 
life.  It  would  obviously  be  outside  the  scope  of  this 
preface  to  go  in  detail  into  the  whole  question  of  the 
origin  of  society,  but  it  would  also  appear  an  indis- 
putable platitude  that  man,  qua  man,  thrives  by 
co-operation  and  association.  In  economical  termin- 
ology this  truth  is  known  as  the  division  of  labour, 
in  sociology  by  our  frequently  quoted  Aristotelian 
dictum  that  man  is  a  social  animal.  Nietzsche,  it  is 
true,  tries  to  evade,  or  at  any  rate  minimise,  the  force 
of  this  fact  by  treating  law  as  the  concrete  exemplifi- 
cation of  might  is  right.  This,  of  course,  is  true  as 
far  as  it  goes,  but  it  is  only  one  side  of  the  medal. 
All  law  is  based  on  sovereignty,  and  all  sovereignty 
is  in  the  last  resort  based  on  force.  It  is  possible, 
no  doubt,  for  this  force,  this  ultimate  sanction  to  be 
exercised  on  approved  Nietzschean  principles  by  the 
few  against  the  many.  To  quote  the  words  of  Ihering, 
the  great  Austrian  jurist ;  "  And  so  force,  when  it 
allies  itself  with  insight  and  self-control,  produces  law. 


GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS        85 

It  is  the  origin  of  law  out  of  the  power  of  the  stronger 
who  stands  in  opposition  to  another,  of  which  we 
now  begin  to  get  a  glimpse."  Yet,  even  though  for 
the  moment  we  confine  ourselves  to  this  aspect,  it  is 
obvious  that  while  such  a  law  subjugates  the  weak 
to  the  strong,  it  also  regulates  and  curtails  the  rights  of 
the  strong  among  themselves,  creating,  as  it  were,  a 
state  within  a  state,  or,  to  use  once  again  the  language 
of  Ihering,  "the  self-limitation  of  force  in  its  own 
interest."  Equally  important,  however,  is  the  obverse 
side  of  the  medal,  on  which  appears  the  exercise  of  the 
ultimate  sanction  by  the  many  against  the  few.  To 
quote  Ihering  for  the  last  time  :  u  The  crucial  point 
in  the  whole  organisation  of  law  is  the  preponderance 
of  the  common  interests  of  all  over  the  particular 
interests  of  the  individuals."  The  vice,  then,  of 
Nietzsche's  theory  is  that  he  bisects  law  into  its  two 
constituent  phases,  ignores  one  phase  and  confines 
himself  to  the  other,  apparently  in  blissful  oblivion  of 
the  fact  that  even  in  the  most  aristocratic  of  aristo- 
cracies there  exists,  even  though  in  miniature,  the 
"  slow  suicide  of  the  state." 

There  is  a  further  criticism  which  seems  to  arise 
properly  out  of  Nietzsche's  vehement  denunciation  of 
civilisation.  The  state  and  civilisation  are  bad  accord- 
ing to  Nietzsche,  because  they  take  the  sting  out  of 
this  struggle  for  existence,  and  cut  the  fangs  of  the 
superman.  But,  according  to  Nietzschean  principles, 
are  they  not  equally  good  in  so  far  as  they  enable  the 
superman  to  refine  and  elaborate  his  scale  of  combat  ? 
It  is,  indeed,  obvious  that  the  intellectualisation  of  the 
blonde  beast  of  primitive  times  into  the  newspaper 
proprietor,  American  financier,  or  revolutionary  phil- 
osopher of  modernity  would  have  been  impossible  but 
for  the  intervention  of  a  very  highly  developed  social 
organism.     Yet  even  the  most  confirmed  Nietzschean 


86  MODERNITIES 

would  admit  that  Mr.  Rockefeller  is,  in  spite  of  his 
evangelistic  proclivities,  a  more  highly  developed 
specimen  of  the  superman  than  Tamerlane,  and 
Lord  Northcliffe  than,  say,  Caesar  Borgia. 

One  final  observation :  according  to  Nietzsche  the 
test  of  merit  is  efficiency  and  the  test  of  efficiency  is 
success.  Supposing,  however,  that  a  large  number  of 
individuals  comparatively  weak  overpower  through 
sheer  force  of  combination  a  small  number  of  indi- 
viduals comparatively  strong.  Are  not  the  weak 
changed  into  the  strong,  and  conversely  ?  We  do 
not  say  that  this  is  necessarily  so  :  we  merely  adduce 
the  argument  to  show  how  easily  Nietzschean  prin- 
ciples lend  themselves  to  exploitation  at  the  hands  of 
the  Socialists. 

Nietzsche's  philosophy,  however,  was  above  all 
didactic,  missionary.  He  analysed  contemporary 
morality,  not  by  way  of  an  academic  or  scientific 
exercise,  but  with  a  view  to  striking,  and  striking 
hard,  at  that  aspect  of  it  which  he  quite  honestly 
believed  to  be  vicious  and  deleterious.  Hence  it  is 
that  having  in  his  first  two  essays  dealt  with  the 
etymological  and  legal  aspects  of  the  question,  he  now 
goes  straight  to  the  root  of  the  whole  matter.  What 
is  the  practical  application  of  all  these  tendencies 
which  he  has  analysed?  The  ascetic  ideal — and 
against  this  ideal  our  teacher  proceeds  to  deliver  as 
tense  and  concentrated  a  sermon  as  ever  fell  from  the 
lips  of  any  denouncer  of  the  luxurious  or  non-ascetic 
ideal.  We  have  not  space,  unfortunately,  to  follow 
Nietzsche  through  his  elaborate  analysis  both  of  the 
ascetic  ideal  in  its  origin  and  in  its  eventual  distortion 
and  corruption  at  the  hands  of  the  ascetic  priest.  We 
will  only  observe  that  to  grasp  properly  Nietzsche's 
position,  stress  should  be  laid  on  the  fact  that  in  the 
same  way  in  which  it  was  not  the  conscience  per  se,  but 


GENEALOGY   OF   MORALS        87 

the  current  content  of  the  conscience,  so  it  was  not 
asceticism  per  se,  but  the  current  content  of  asceticism 
to  which  Nietzsche  objected. 

As  he  explains  in  drastic  and  elaborate  style,  the 
philosopher,  like  the  jockey  or  the  athlete,  would, 
through  the  simple  exigencies  of  his  metier,  live  the 
ascetic  life.  In  such  cases  asceticism  is  simply  the 
mechanical  condition  precedent  of  complete  concen- 
tration. Similarly,  the  iibermensch  (superman)  would 
no  doubt  be  compelled  to  live  the  ascetic  life  in  his 
strenuous  struggle  with  subsisting  values.  The  asceti- 
cism, however,  to  which  Nietzsche  in  fact  did  object, 
was  the  asceticism  which  was  not  like  the  philosopher's 
asceticism,  a  means  to  creating  or  promoting  actual 
human  life,  but  was  a  means  to  destroying  and  mini- 
mising actual  human  life,  the  asceticism  which  denied 
the  right  to  happiness,  and  which  found  in  sin  the 
solution  to  the  riddle  of  the  human  world. 

Indeed,  it  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  Nietzsche's 
whole  attitude  that  he  demurs  vigorously  to  almost 
any  solution  of  the  riddle  of  the  world.  According 
to  his  reasoning,  the  need  for  any  solution  at  all, 
whether  transcendental,  after  the  pattern  of  Kant 
and  the  Idealists,  or  quasi-transcendental,  after  the 
pattern  of  the  pseudo-metaphysics  of  the  scientists, 
argues  an  inability  to  take  life  on  its  own  merits  and 
on  its  own  valuation. 

Let  us  finally  glance  briefly  at  the  practical 
application  of  the  Nietzschean  philosophy,  a  course 
thoroughly  consistent  with  the  intensely  practical 
spirit  of  our  prophet.  We  are  at  first  almost  over- 
whelmed by  the  heterogeneous  character  of  those 
who  profess  to  be  the  true  disciples  of  the  great 
master,  a  character  so  heterogeneous,  forsooth,  that 
Nietzsche  seems  occasionally  to  be  nothing  but  a 
catch-word  mouthed  by  every  conceivable  school  of 


88  MODERNITIES 

thought  with  the  rankest  impunity.  The  Socialists, 
conveniently  forgetting  the  opprobrious  designation 
by  the  sage  as  "  spiders,"  and  their  apostolic  "  Man 
is  not  equal,"  which  he  had  thundered  forth,  find  a 
bond  of  sympathy  in  their  common  disapproval  of 
Christianity,  though  even  here  their  standpoints 
are  radically  different,  since  while  the  u  tarantulas  " 
rebelled  against  it  as  being  too  narrow  a  prison, 
Nietzsche  scorns  it  as  being  too  comfortable  a  lounge. 
Zarathustra,  moreover,  showed  himself  truly  Persian 
in  his  repudiation  of  the  claims  of  the  child-bearing 
machine  called  woman  to  equal  rights  with  the 
warrior-man  :  u  When  thou  goest  with  women," 
quoth  the  prophet,  "  forget  not  the  whip."  Nothing 
daunted,  however,  the  shrieking  hordes  of  the  ultra- 
modern sisterhood,  from  the  "  Free  Lover "  to  the 
"  Ethical  Lifer,"  find  in  Nietzsche  the  most  emphatic 
justification  for  alike  their  theories  and  their  practices. 
Does  not  Es  Lebe  das  Leben,  the  well-known  drama 
of  Sudermann,  portray  the  philosophical  dogma  of 
self-expression  leading  to  highly  unphilosophic  appli- 
cations ?  Does  not  the  Scandinavian  writer  and 
woman  with  a  mission,  Ella  Key,  start  her  book 
Personality  and  Beauty  with  the  following  quotations 
from  Nietzsche  :  "  Follow  after  thyself — what  says 
thy  conscience  ? — thou  shalt  be  that  which  thou  art 
— let  the  highest  self-expression  be  thy  highest  ex- 
pression." Truly  the  Nietzschean  aphorisms  seem 
caps  guaranteed  to  fit  the  most  diverse  heads  so,  but 
they  show  the  slightest  disposition  to  tumidity. 
Young  men  and  nations  in  a  hurry,  Socialists  and 
aristocrats,  aesthetes  and  "  woman's  righters,"  all 
combine  in  a  cacophonous  chorus  well  calculated  to 
make  the  shade  of  Zarathustra,  should  he  visit 
Europe,  hasten  back  in  disgust  to  the  mountain 
peaks  of  his  solitude. 


GENEALOGY  OF  MORALS        89 

Yet,  however  susceptible  to  abuse  the  Nietzschean 
philosophy  may  be,  such  a  multifarious  exploitation, 
though  repudiated  from  the  official  standpoint,  does 
not  strike  us  as  necessarily  illogical.  The  doctrine 
of  the  superman,  indeed,  has  in  Nietzsche  two  distinct 
meanings — the  evolution  of  generic  man  to  his  ex- 
treme limit,  as  exemplified  in  the  aphorism,  u  Man  is 
a  bridge  between  beast  and  superman,"  and  secondly 
the  idealisation  of  the  clash  between  the  individual 
and  society,  the  apotheosis  of  the  aggressive  comba- 
tant element  in  man,  the  to  Ov/jLoelSes  of  the  Platonic 
trinity.  Yet,  whatever  meaning  may  be  chosen,  it  is 
well-nigh  impossible  to  prevent  individuals  from 
cherishing  the  honest  and  sincere  belief  that  in 
developing  themselves  (whether  with  or  without  the 
rigid  discipline  incumbent  upon  the  orthodox  super- 
man), they  are  either  helping  the  development  of 
the  race,  or  providing  a  picturesque  expression  of  a 
considerably  altered,  but  still  authentic,  "  Athanasius 
contra  mundum."  With  the  present  boom  no  doubt 
Nietzscheanism  may  become  a  craze  (in  Germany,  of 
course,  it  is  already  passe  and  has  become  academic 
and  respectable),  like  the  aestheticism  of  the  Wilde 
period  and  grown  liable  to  equal  if  dissimilar  per- 
versions. 

Yet  none  the  less,  if  taken  very  broadly  and  very 
sanely,  Nietzsche  is  capable  of  constituting  a  valuable 
modern  bible  for  the  twentieth-century  man  who 
proposes  to  live  vastly  and  to  play  for  grand  stakes. 
It  may  no  doubt  be  true  that  while  Heine  and  Voltaire 
merely  shot  poisoned  arrows  at  Christianity,  Nietzsche 
blew  it  clean  away  with  the  giant  salvos  of  his  artil- 
lery ;  yet  on  the  tremendous  space  that  he  cleared  he 
built  a  temple  to  Energy  and  Efficiency.  And  note, 
that  he  worships  these  deities  not  for  any  ulterior 
advantage,  but  for  their  own  sake  solely.     His  frenzy 


90  MODERNITIES 

for  life  precludes  him  at  once  from  being  a  pessimist  ; 
it  does  not  follow,  however,  that  he  is  an  optimist  (in 
the  hedonistic  sense  of  the  word),  for  neither  in  his 
own  life,  nor  in  his  conception  of  that  of  others,  do 
we  find  it  clearly  expressed  that  the  pleasures  of  life 
outweigh  the  pains.  More  accurate  is  it  to  say  that  he 
is  a  philosophy  transcending  optimism.  u  On  !  On  !  ! 
On  ! ! !  Live  !  Live ! !  Live  ! !  !  whatever  the  result 
and  whatever  your  fate.  Fight  life  and  chance  every- 
thing, for  the  fight's  the  thing  rather  than  the  mere 
trumpery  guerdon."  So  we  would  venture  to  phrase 
the  true  Nietzschean  spirit,  or  if  an  actual  quotation 
is  required,  "  /  say  unto  you  it  is  not  the  good  cause 
which  sanctifies  the  war,  but  the  good  war  which  sanctifies 
the  cause." 

The  most  marvellous  thing,  however,  about  this 
grim  lust  of  life  is  that  it  is  absolutely  insatiate,  absol- 
utely infinite.  According  to  the  theory  of  the  Eternal 
Return,  the  events  of  this  life  will  repeat  and  repeat 
with  the  tireless  inevitability  of  a  recurring  decimal. 
Taken  literally,  no  doubt  this  theory  is  simply  the 
mystical  dance  of  a  Titanic  mind  striving  to  scale  in- 
finity. But  the  psychological  significance  is  none  the 
less  profound.  Is  it  not  turning  the  tables  with  a 
vengeance  on  the  Christian  idea  of  a  prospective  non- 
earthly  existence,  compared  with  which  this  existence 
is  a  mere  shadowy  preparation,  to  pile  future  life  on 
future  life  on  future  life,  and  every  one  of  them  a 
repetition  of  man's  life  on  earth  ?  It  is  impossible 
for  the  affirmation  of  human  existence  to  be  carried 
further.  And  this  human  existence,  what  is  its  solu- 
tion ?  None,  or  rather  itself  !  Existence  is  its  own 
sanction,  its  own  raison  d'etre,  and  he  who  coldly 
ravishes  the  sphinx  of  life  has  found  a  drastic  solution 
far  excelling  that  of  any  CEdipus. 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG 

"  I  seek  God  and  find  the  Devil." 

"  My  hate  is  boundless  as  the  wastes,  burning  as  the  sun,  and  stronger 
than  my  love." 

The  above  quotations  give  some  idea  of  that  black 
pessimism  which  is,  at  any  rate,  the  most  patent 
characteristic  of  Strindberg.  Yet  neither  quotation, 
motto,  nor  catchword  can  do  justice  to  the  multi- 
farious life  and  character  of  this  man.  For  Strind- 
berg, more  than  any  other  European  author  of  our 
age,  has  boxed  the  whole  compass  of  our  modernity 
with  its  tumults,  its  aspirations,  its  perversities  ;  its 
glaring  searchlights  of  science,  its  pallid  flames  of 
mysticism,  and  its  needle  ever  pointing  to  the  two 
opposite  though  connected  poles  of  sex.  He  is  in 
turns  the  most  rabid  of  atheists,  the  most  devout  of 
Catholics,  the  most  esoteric  of  occultists  ;  now  the 
most  Utopian  of  Socialists,  now  the  most  uncom- 
promising of  individualists.  Running  the  gauntlet  of 
three  unhappy  and  dissolved  marriages,  he  has  become 
the  European  specialist  in  conjugal  infelicity,  to  say 
nothing  of  being  credited  with  innumerable  conquests, 
which  he  himself  would  doubtless  have  designated 
as  captures.  His  novels,  his  autobiographies,  and 
his  equally  subjective  dramas  all  exhale  the  most 
sulphurous  hate  against  the  distorted  anomaly  of  the 
new  woman,  yet  he  is  an  Orpheus  who,  scorning 
the  prosaic  joys  of  some  normal  and  uninteresting 
Eurydice,    surrenders    himself    with    almost    patho- 

91 


92  MODERNITIES 

logical  gusto  to  be  torn  to  pieces  by  the  monstrous 
maenads  of  modernity.  The  paroxysms  of  his  hate 
alternate  with  moods  of  the  most  sentimental  idealism, 
and  the  harsh  impetus  of  his  onslaught  is  only 
equalled  by  the,  at  times,  abject  meekness  of  his 
romantic  devotion. 

Before,  consequently,  we  embark  on  some  slight 
survey  of  Strindberg's  life  and  of  the  more  character- 
istic of  his  numerous  works,  let  us  endeavour  to  lay 
hold  of  the  clues  of  one  or  two  primary  features 
which  will  serve  as  a  guide  in  the,  at  first  sight, 
extremely  tangled  labyrinth  of  his  psychology. 

Now  the  dominant  emotion  in  Strindberg's  tem- 
perament is  fear.  It  is  this  fear  which,  at  times 
assuming  the  dimensions  of  paranoia  or  systematised 
delusion  and  persecution  mania,  largely  supplies  the 
explanation  to  his  whole  attitude  towards  Man, 
Woman,  and  God.  He  possessed  also  a  vehemently 
explosive  egoism  and  a  gigantic  intellect,  at  times 
dominating  his  fear  and  functioning  with  the  most 
powerful  precision,  but  as  often  as  not  interpreting 
the  whole  external  world  in  the  terms  of  some  pre- 
conceived subjective  emotion.  Add  also  a  morbidly 
hypertrophied  sexual  sensibility,  together  with  a  dis- 
tinct strain  of  genuine  idealism,  and  one  may  perhaps 
be  able  to  envisage  with  some  accuracy  the  cardinal 
points  of  our  author's  brain. 

August  Strindberg  was  born  in  1849,  the  son  of 
a  mesalliance  between  a  shipping  agent  and  a  servant 
girl.  The  circumstances  of  his  childhood  tended  to 
magnify  that  morbid  sense  of  fear  which,  according 
to  our  most  eminent  psychologists,  is  always  innate 
and  never  altogether  acquired.  The  two  parents, 
the  seven  children,  and  the  two  servants  lived  in  two 
rooms,  and  the  family  always  appeared  to  him  like 
M  a  prison  in  which  two  prisoners  watched  each  other, 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  93 

a  place  where  children  were  tortured  and  maids 
brawled."  His  mother  died  when  he  was  thirteen, 
to  be  succeeded  by  the  inevitable  stepmother.  His 
school  life  also  was  unhappy,  but  his  description  of 
it,  though  no  doubt  perfectly  consistent  with  actual 
hardship,  exhibits  at  the  same  time  the  reactions  of 
a  morbid  sensibility  to  the  hard  facts  of  external  life. 
"  Life  was  a  penitentiary  for  crimes  which  one  had 
committed  before  one  was  born,  so  that  the  child 
always  went  about  with  a  bad  conscience." 

Note  also,  at  the  same  time,  the  presence  of  the 
combative  aggressive  element  in  the  boy  who  would 
lose  nearly  every  game  of  chess  by  the  inconsidered 
vehemence  of  his  attack,  or  would  break  open  chests 
of  drawers  in  the  fury  of  his  desire  to  obtain  their 
contents.  And  observe  the  early  manifestations  of 
that  fundamental  emotion  which  was  to  obtain 
throughout  his  life  alternative  outlets  in  the  two 
parallel  channels  of  religion  and  sex.  Thus,  like 
Byron,  he  experienced  a  violent  passion  for  a  girl 
before  the  age  of  puberty.  So  far,  again,  as  religion 
was  concerned,  he  had  a  great  horror  of  darkness 
and  the  unknown,  and  his  deity  would  appear  to 
have  been  a  god  rather  of  fear  than  of  love.  And 
though  Scandinavians  as  a  race  take  Christianity 
far  more  seriously  than  the  inhabitants  of  any 
other  European  country,  he  would  appear  to  have 
possessed,  even  for  a  Scandinavian,  the  religious 
temperament  to  an  unusual  degree.  Thus,  he  said 
his  prayers  on  his  way  to  school,  and  evinced  a 
precocious  desire  to  become  a  priest.  But  the  re- 
ligious element  became  dormant  amid  the  chequered 
vicissitudes  which  signalised  his  youth  and  his  adoles- 
cence. He  started  to  study  medicine  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Upsala,  but  his  lack  of  funds  broke  into 
his   college   career  and   compelled   him  to  earn  his 


94  MODERNITIES 

own  living.  He  is  by  turns  telegraph  clerk,  editor 
of  an  insurance  paper  (for  which  purpose  he  specially 
learns  the  higher  mathematics),  tutor  in  the  family 
of  a  rich  Jewish  physician,  actor  in  the  Karl  Moor  of 
Schiller's  Robbers,  journalist  on  a  daily  paper  (where 
the  drastic  offensiveness  of  his  criticisms  made  his 
position  on  the  staff  intolerable),  and  librarian  in  the 
Royal  Library  of  Stockholm  (when  he  specially  learns 
Chinese  for  the  purpose  of  compiling  a  catalogue). 
His  struggles  were  bitter  and  continued,  and  the 
acuteness  of  his  privations  manifests  itself  in  a  deep 
consciousness  of  class  hatred  against  the  prosperous 
and  not  infrequently  dishonest  philistinism  of  the 
day. 

Note,  also,  the  occurrence  of  combined  religious 
and  persecution  mania  in  the  crises  of  his  illness  and 
despondency.  For  at  such  times  he  takes  the  Devil 
himself  as  seriously  as  the  Deity,  believes  in  an 
u  Evil  God  to  whom  the  Creator  had  handed  over 
the  world,"  and  "  has  the  consciousness  of  being 
personally  persecuted  by  personal  powers  of  evil." 
These  emotional  outbursts  are  all  the  more  interest- 
ing because  intellectually  he  had  become  the  most 
fanatical  of  freethinkers,  had  read  with  profit  Buckle's 
History  of  Civilisation  in  England,  and  was  a  fervent 
disciple  of  the  new  naturalism.  During  this  period 
he  had  already  begun  to  write  dramas,  none  of 
which,  however,  have  any  substantial  significance 
with  the  possible  exception  of  the  historical  drama 
Meister  Olof,  which  was  unsuccessfully  performed  in 
1877-8,  and  into  which  the  already  misogynous 
author  had  introduced  the  character  of  the  prostitute, 
u  in  order  to  show  that  the  difference  between  her 
and  the  ordinary  woman  is  not  so  enormously 
great." 

In  1879,  however,  Strindberg  achieved  a  succes  de 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  95 

scandale  with  his  novel  The  Red  Room.  The  satire  of 
this  book  (written,  it  will  be  remembered,  during  his 
freethought  years),  may,  no  doubt,  be  the  milk  of 
Christian  charity  when  compared  with  the  concen- 
trated vitriol  of  the  Black  Flags  of  his  Catholic  period, 
and  the  various  scenes  and  pictures  may,  no  doubt, 
strike  the  critic  as  episodic  and  lacking  in  systematic 
cohesion,  yet  the  work  has  some  claim  to  recognition 
by  reason  of  the  vivid  force  of  its  description  of 
contemporaneous  life.  The  naively  idealistic  hero, 
the  shady  actress  passing  from  seduction  to  seduction 
with  all  the  facility  of  the  experienced  Ingenue,  the 
respectable  director  of  the  shoddy  insurance  com- 
pany, the  insidious  Jewish  financial  broker,  the 
cynical  journalist,  the  grim  but  benevolent  doctor, 
are  all  portrayed  in  a  style  which  at  once  shines  and 
chills  with  all  the  brightness  of  the  coldest  steel. 
Viewed  psychologically,  the  book  is  significant  as 
exhibiting  the  Socialistic  fury  of  an  embittered  man 
"whose  class-hatred  lay  in  his  blood  and  in  his 
nerves,"  and  who  revenges  himself  on  the  system 
which  had  conspired  against  him,  by  exposing  with 
sinister  precision  its  most  repulsive  truths. 

The  cynicism  of  The  Red  Room  was  succeeded  by 
the  Utopian  romanticism  of  the  dramas,  Das  Geheim- 
niss  der  Glide,  Frau  Margit,  Gluckspeter.  The  change 
in  mood  is  probably  to  be  ascribed  to  the  vogue  of 
The  Red  Room,  and  to  the  initial  success  of  his  alliance 
with  his  first  wife,  Siri  von  Essen,  the  actress,  whom 
he  had  married  in  1878,  and  who  was  subsequently 
to  enjoy  the  ambiguous  blessing  of  being  officially 
immortalised  in  The  Confession  of  a  Fool. 

This  mood,  in  its  turn,  was  soon  replaced  by  a 
concentrated  and  fanatical  misogynism  which  was  to 
dominate  practically  every  book  which  Strindberg 
was  subsequently  to  write.     The  fundamental  cause 


96  MODERNITIES 

was,  no  doubt,  the  morbidly  irritable  and  suspicious 
nature  of  the  man  himself.  Strindberg's  whole 
attitude  towards  woman,  however,  is  only  fully 
understood  by  some  appreciation  of  the  New  Woman 
Movement,  which  under  the  auspices  of  Ellen  Key 
flourished  vigorously  in  Sweden  in  the  "  eighties." 
Like,  for  instance,  our  own  Suffragette  agitation,  or 
indeed,  any  popular  craze,  however  intrinsically 
meritorious,  this  movement,  which  was,  above  all,  a 
crusade  for  sexual  equality,  was  attended  by  wild  and 
perverse  extravagances.  Not  merely  the  genuinely 
masculine  woman,  but  every  little  doll  of  a  woman 
in  every  little  doll's  house,  became  obsessed  with  the 
imperative  necessity  of  the  emancipation  of  her  own 
body  and  the  self-development  of  her  own  soul.  A 
holy  war  of  the  sexes  was  proclaimed,  and  the  sacred 
shibboleth  of  the  New  Thought,  the  New  Ethics,  and 
the  New  Love  was  soon  in  the  mouth  of  every 
woman  possessed  of  the  true  feminine  esprit  de  corps. 
And  with  the  praiseworthy  object  of  adjusting  the 
balance  of  nature,  and  of  arriving  so  far  as  possible 
at  the  ideal  harmony  of  an  almost  perfect  equation, 
in  some  cases  even  the  little  boys  would  be  brought 
up  as  girls,  while,  conversely,  the  little  girls  would 
be  educated  as  boys. 

But  the  misogynism  of  Strindberg  was  something 
far  more  than  a  merely  intellectual  appreciation 
of  the  Anti-Feminist  standpoint.  Even  making 
allowance  for  the  considerable  impetus  doubtless 
given  to  his  attack  by  reason  of  his  personal 
matrimonial  complications,  the  cause  lay  far  more 
deeply  ingrained  in  his  own  constitution.  For  the 
arrogation  by  the  female  of  equal  rights  to  the 
male  would  of  itself  tend  to  provoke  the  violent 
apprehensiveness  of  a  man  always  morbidly  alarmed 
at    the    slightest    suggestion     of    any    interference 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  97 

with  his  own  personal  rights,  and  always  scenting 
a  grievance  with  all  the  superhuman  flair  of  the 
true  maniac  of  persecution.  Strindberg's  hatred 
of  woman  is  thus  to  a  large  extent  the  hatred  self- 
begotten  of  fear  out  of  its  own  spirit,  and  without 
the  superfluous  aid  of  a  concrete  reality.  If,  too, 
we  identify  Strindberg  himself  with  some  of  his 
men  characters  (e.g.  Kurt  in  The  Death  Dance,  Axel 
in  Playing  with  Fire,  or  the  narrator  of  The  Confession 
of  a  Fool),  who  render  to  the  objects  of  their  passion 
acts  of  the  most  abject  servility,  and  who  kiss  the 
feet  of  women  almost  as  frequently  as  their  lips, 
we  would  hazard  the  suggestion  that  he  himself 
(who  owns  to  having  found  in  his  reverence  for 
woman  a  substitute  for  his  reverence  for  God)  would 
in  certain  moods  welcome  with  morbid  alacrity  this 
new  feminine  domination,  while  his  reaction  from 
this  inverted  attitude  would  but  lash  his  misogynism 
to  even  more  hysterical  paroxysms. 

These  considerations  may  perhaps  explain  why 
in  so  many  of  his  works  the  Strindberg  woman  and 
the  Strindberg  man  are  so  highly  specialised.  The 
typical  Strindberg  woman  is  a  fiend  with  the  physique 
of  a  Madonna  and  the  soul  of  a  vampire,  who  sucks 
dry  the  life-blood  of  her  heroic  victim.  The  typical 
Strindberg  man  is  a  Samson  shorn  of  his  strength, 
writhing  in  the  toils  of  some  Delilah,  protesting 
vociferously,  and  yet  taking  a  morbid  delight  in 
his  own  bondage.  English  readers  will  remember 
the  not  altogether  unanalogous  case  of  John  Tanner, 
that  converse  Don  Juan  of  Mr.  Shaw,  who,  with 
all  his  fanfaronnade  of  masculine  independence,  is, 
as  he  has  from  the  beginning  feared,  anticipated 
and  desired,  successfully  hunted  down  by  his  sly 
and  dashing  Donna  Juana. 

After  the  publication  of  The  Red  Room,  Strindberg 

G 


98  MODERNITIES 

visited  both  Switzerland  and  Paris,  where  he  was 
invited  to  meet  Bjornsen,  entered  into  relations  with 
the  Theatre  Libre  of  M.  Antoine,  had  one  or  two 
of  his  plays  produced,  and  meditated  an  unfortunately 
written  satire  on  the  French  capital.  In  1883  he 
produced  Swedish  Destinies,  a  volume  of  essays  on 
contemporary  problems,  whose  romantic  masquerade 
would  seem  to  have  effectively  concealed  its  under- 
lying satire. 

The  most  significant  work,  however,  which  he 
published  at  this  period  was  the  volume  of  twelve  (sub- 
sequently expanded  to  twenty)  short  stories,  entitled 
Marriage.  These  tales  all  treat  of  the  various  phases, 
economic,  social,  psychological,  and  physiological,  of 
the  sexual  problem,  which  he  observed  either  in  his  own 
life  or  in  the  couples  whom  he  saw  in  a  Swiss  pension. 
The  characteristic  of  this  work  is  its  extraordinary 
seriousness.  For  to  Strindberg  the  sexual  problem 
provides  neither  the  excuse  for  the  philosophic  flip- 
pancy of  the  cynic,  nor  for  the  priggish  modernity 
of  the  ethical  or  intellectual  snob,  but  is  the  one 
obsessing  reality  of  actual  life. 

Compared  with  the  black  pessimism  of  this  work 
(relieved  though  it  may  be  at  times  by  a  ray  of 
tender  sentiment  or  deep  paternal  feeling),  the 
grimmest  stories  of  Wedekind  are  benignly  jovial 
and  the  most  scabrous  tales  of  De  Maupassant  but 
innocently  sportive.  Neither  smile,  nor  even  leer, 
ever  breaks  the  set  visage  of  this  stern  irony,  which 
seems  indistinguishable  from  life  itself.  There  are 
no  artificial  climaxes  or  ostentatious  flourishes  of 
style  to  prick  the  senses  of  the  reader.  Described 
in  a  language  of  the  most  brutal  phlegm  and  the 
most  forceful  simplicity,  the  facts  of  reality  do  their 
own  unaided  work.  Each  story  is  no  mere  dexter- 
ously   elaborated    incident,    but     a    condensed    life. 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  99 

How  powerful,  for  instance,  is  such  a  story  as  Asra, 
the  history  of  the  pious  youth  afflicted  with  anaemia 
by  reason  of  his  own  continence,  and  dying  two 
years  after  his  marriage  with  that  superabundantly 
healthy  ethical  worker  who  subsequently  married 
twice  again,  had  eight  children,  and  wrote  articles 
on  over-population  and  immorality.  And  how 
genuinely  awful  is  Autumn,  that  frigid  anti-climax 
of  a  stale  and  re-hashed  honeymoon  : 

"  And  she  sang,  *  What  is  the  name  of  the  land  in  which  my 
darling  dwells?'  But,  alas,  the  voice  was  thin  and  sharp.  It 
was  at  times  like  a  shriek  from  the  depths  of  the  soul  that  fears 
that  the  noon  is  passed,  and  that  the  evening  is  approaching. 
When  the  song  was  over,  she  did  not  at  first  dare  to  turn  round, 
as  though  she  was  expecting  that  he  would  come  to  her  and 
say  something.  But  he  did  not  come  ;  and  there  was  silence 
in  the  room.  When  at  last  she  turned  round  on  her  chair,  he 
sat  on  the  sofa  and  cried.  She  wanted  to  get  up,  take  his  head 
in  her  hands,  and  kiss  him  as  before  ;  but  she  remained  seated, 
motionless,  with  her  gaze  turned  to  the  floor.  .  .  . 

"  They  drank  coffee,  and  spoke  about  the  coolness  of  the  summer 
weather,  and  where  they  would  spend  the  summer  next  year. 
But  the  conversation  began  to  dry  up  ;  and  they  repeated  them- 
selves. At  last  he  said,  after  a  long,  undisguised  yawn,  '  I'm 
going  to  bed  now.'  'So  will  I,'  she  said,  and  got  up,  'but  I  will 
go  first  and  have  a  look  on  the  balcony.' 

"  When  she  came  back,  she  remained  standing  and  listening  at 
the  door  of  the  bedroom.  All  was  quiet  inside,  and  the  boots 
were  outside  the  door.  She  knocked,  but  there  was  no  answer. 
Then  she  opened  the  door,  and  went  in.     He  slept !     He  slept ! " 

Though,  moreover,  the  characters  in  Marriage  are 
more  normal  and  average  than  in  any  other  of 
Strindberg's  works,  the  author  airs  again  and  again 
his  pet  sexual  grievances.  Corinna,  in  particular, 
and  The  Due/,  are  savage  attacks  respectively  on 
the  ethical  amazon  and  the  womanly  woman  who 
makes  her  very  womanliness  an  engine  of  tyranny, 
while  the  Breadwinner  narrates  how  an  apparently 
quite  impeccable  husband  and  father,   writing  him- 


100  MODERNITIES 

self  to  death  to  support  his  family,  was  driven  to 
suicide  by  the  naggings  and  exactions  of  a  querulous 
and  discontented  wife. 

Marriage  was  succeeded  by  the  Utopian  Swiss 
Tales;  but  the  strenuous  economic  struggles  to 
which  Strindberg  was  now  subjected  forced  him 
to  discard  as  insipid  the  vague  compromise  of 
free-thought  and  to  drink  the  bracing  tonic  of 
a  Nietzschean  and  self-reliant  atheism.  **  God, 
Heaven,  and  Eternity  had  to  be  thrown  overboard 
if  the  ship  was  to  be  kept  afloat  ;  and  it  had  to  be 
kept  afloat  because  I  was  not  alone  ...  I  became  an 
atheist  as  a  matter  of  duty  and  necessity." 

Yet  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that,  taking  the 
solution  of  the  World-Riddle  as  a  matter  of  acute 
personal  importance,  he  studies  the  whole  history 
of  mankind  to  'satisfy  himself  that  he  is  right  in 
his  conclusion,  and  that  the  element  of  superstition 
is  still  so  strong  that  when  his  child  is  ill  he 
prays,  atheist  that  he  is,  with  all  the  fervour  of  a 
Christian  Scientist.  To  the  period  of  his  atheism 
are  to  be  ascribed,  with  the  exception  of  Black 
Flags,  his  most  powerful,  most  drastic  work,  his  two 
packed  volumes  of  one-act  plays,  the  autobiographic 
Confession  of  a  Fool,  and  the  Nietzschean  novel,  The 
Open  Sea. 

Note  also  that  his  matrimonial  misery  and  his 
divorce  from  his  first  wife  had  given  an  additional 
poison  to  a  sting  which  was  always  morbidly  eager 
to  inject  its  venom. 

The  plays  of  Strindberg  belong  to  the  naturalistic 
school  of  problem-play  which  was  in  full  vogue 
during  the  period  of  their  composition.  Technically 
their  originality  lies  in  the  intensity  of  their  concen- 
tration. Though  many  of  them  are  one-acters  and 
they  nearly  all  observe  the  unity  of  place,  they  re- 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  101 

semble  less  the  ordinary  curtain-raiser  than  the  one 
solitary  act  round  which  the  ordinary  modern  play  is 
usually  written.  Each  play  is  nothing  but  climax. 
Though  in  some  cases  they  are  nearly  as  long  as 
ordinary  drama,  it  is  rare  that  they  have  any  sub- 
sidiary characters.  Even  the  protagonists  are  too 
occupied  with  the  urgencies  of  their  own  immediate 
crises,  and  with  exposing  the  nakedness  of  their  own 
souls,  to  have  time  for  either  the  artificial  jewels  of 
the  Pinerovian  epigram  or  the  flying  rockets  of  the 
Shavian  dialectic.  The  problem  is  stuck  too  deep 
into  their  lives  to  require  any  artificial  flourishing. 
Observe,  too,  that  nearly  every  play  is  a  variation 
on  one  theme,  the  mutual  hate,  fear,  and  war  of  a 
malevolent  humanity.  Their  very  love  but  sharpens 
their  enmity,  and  they  draw  blood  with  nearly  every 
word. 

The  three -act  play,  The  Father,  ventilates  the  author's 
chronic  grievance  of  the  ruin  of  the  man  by  the 
woman.  The  plot  is  cruel  in  its  simplicity.  The 
husband,  though  in  a  state  of  acute  nervous  disorder, 
is  not  certifiable.  The  wife,  anxious  for  a  freer  life, 
smuggles  a  doctor  into  the  house,  plays  adroitly  on 
the  man's  pet  mania  that  he  is  not  the  father  of  his 
own  daughter,  forges  in  his  handwriting  a  letter 
branded  with  insanity,  goads  him  into  throwing  a 
burning  lamp  at  her,  and  with  the  aid  of  his  old  nurse 
gets  him  by  a  ruse  into  a  strait-jacket,  in  which  he 
succumbs  to  a  stroke.  Yet  with  all  its  concentrated 
sensationalism,  and  work  though  it  may  be  of  a  con- 
stitutional maniac  of  persecution,  the  play  is  too  deep, 
too  sincere,  too  fundamentally  convincing  to  be  ever 
near  that  line  which  separates  the  realm  of  tragedy 
from  the  pandemonium  of  melodrama.  With  what 
ghastly  irony  does  the  daughter  innocently  prick  the 
sensitive  sore  in  her  father's  brain : 


102  MODERNITIES 

[Rittmeister  sits  huddled  up  on  the  settee. 

BERTHA.  Do  you  know  what  you've  done  ?  Do  you  know  you've 
thrown  the  lamp  at  Mamma  ? 

Rittmeister.  Have  I  ? 

Bertha.  Yes,  you  have.     Just  think  if  she'd  been  hurt  ? 

Rittmeister.  What  would  that  have  mattered  ? 

Bertha.  You  are  not  my  father  if  you  can  talk  like  that. 

Rittmeister  {gets  up).  What  do  you  say  ?  Am  I  not  your 
father?  How  do  you  know  that  ?  Who  told  you  so  ?  And  who 
is  your  father,  then  ?    Who  ? 

But  of  all  Strindberg's  plays,  indisputably  the  most 
powerful  is  Miss  Julie,  that  gripping  tragedy  of  the 
over-sexed  young  woman  who  on  an  oppressive  mid- 
summer evening  insists  on  being  seduced  by  her 
father's  butler.  The  girl  is  of  noble  birth,  and  the 
duel  of  sex  is  intensified  by  the  duel  of  class.  In  the 
fifty  pages  of  this  play,  with  its  three  characters  of 
the  woman,  the  butler,  and  the  cook,  which  observes 
rigorously  the  Aristotelian  unities,  every  element  of 
the  highest  and  gravest  tragedy  is  introduced  with 
the  most  accurate  and  natural  psychology — the  exag- 
gerated dancing  of  the  daughter  of  the  house,  who 
competes  with  her  own  cook  for  the  favours  of  her 
own  butler-lover  ;  the  ribald  grins  and  songs  of  the 
servants  ;  the  mingled  insolence,  common  sense,  and 
respectfulness  of  the  domestic  ;  the  hysterical  reaction 
of  the  declassed  and  dishonoured  girl.  The  following 
passages  may  perhaps  give  some  faint  idea  of  this 
work's  sustained  and  infernal  power  : 

[JOHN  opens  the  cupboard,  takes  a  bottle  of  wine  out, 
and  fills  two  used  glasses. 

The  YOUNG  Lady.  Where  do  you  get  the  wine  from  ? 

John.  From  the  cellar. 

The  young  Lady.  My  father's  burgundy. 

John.  Ain't  it  good  enough  for  his  son-in-law  ? 

The  Woman.  Thief ! 

John.  Are  you  going  to  blab  ? 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  103 

The  Lady.   Oh — oh — the  accomplice  of  a  thief.  .  .  . 

JOHN.   You  hate  men-folk,  miss  ? 

The  Lady.  Yes,  as  a  rule  !  .  .  .  But  at  times,  when  I  feel 
weak — ugh  ! 

John.  You  hate  me,  too? 

The  Lady.  Infinitely !  I  could  have  killed  you  like  an 
animal  .  .  . 

And  how  clutching  is  the  climax,  when  the  girl,  a 
simultaneous  prey  to  nausea  with  life  and  to  fear 
of  death,  persuades  her  domestic  to  hypnotise  her 
into  suicide  at  almost  the  precise  minute  when  her 
father  is  ringing  for  his  boots  : 

The  YOUNG  Lady.  Have  you  never  been  in  a  theatre  and  seen 
the  mesmerist  ?  He  says  to  the  subject :  "  Take  the  broom"  ;  he 
takes  it.     He  says  "  Sweep"  ;  and  he  sweeps.  .  .  . 

JOHN  {takes  his  razor  and  puts  it  into  her  hand).  Here  is  the 
broom — go  now  where  there's  plenty  of  light — into  the  barn — 
and — (^whispers  into  her  ear). 

Miss  Julie  is  remarkable  as  being  the  only  one  of 
Strindberg's  works  in  which  the  man  comes  off 
victorious  with  the  exception  of  the  four-act  Comrades, 
that  sombre  comedy  of  Parisian  artist  life,  where  the 
crowing  wife  bullies  her  self-sacrificing  husband  on 
the  score  of  having  ousted  him  from  the  Salon  by 
her  own  successful  picture,  only  to  be  told  that  he 
had  simply  changed  the  numbers,  and  to  be  finally 
ejected  from  her  perverted  home  by  that  reas- 
serted man  whose  efficiency  she  had  despised  and 
exploited,  but  whose  virile  despotism  she  now  begins 
to  love. 

In  The  Creditor,  Strindberg  treats  again  his  favourite 
theme  of  the  vampire  woman  and  the  spoliated  man. 
Thekla,  the  usual  worthless,  demoniac  female,  having 
dissolved  her  marriage  with  the  schoolmaster  Gustav, 
has  married  the  artist  Adolph.  The  scene  is  the  sea- 
side.    Thekla  has   gone    off    on    some  jaunt.     Her 


104  MODERNITIES 

new  husband,  who  is  apparently  even  more  miser- 
able without  than  with  his  wife,  is  a  nervous  wreck. 
He  makes  the  acquaintance  of  the  old  husband,  who 
presents  himself  incognito  to  readjust  the  balance  of 
his  matrimonial  account.  Gustav  plays  with  masterly 
hypnotism  on  the  suggestibility  of  his  colleague, 
making  him  doubt  himself,  his  vocation,  his  health, 
and  at  last  his  wife.  And  then  when  his  wife  returns, 
and  the  enfeebled  husband  has  made  an  abortive 
attempt  at  asserting  his  theoretic  virile  superiority, 
he  makes  love  to  the  wife,  is  detected  by  the  visitors, 
and  goes  back  to  his  own  solitary  misery,  to  leave 
his  wife  stranded  and  his  new  confrere  dead.  Note, 
too,  that  here  again  the  human  triangle  is  complete 
in  itself,  and  that  the  agony  is  protracted  to  the  last 
shred  of  its  passion  without  ever  flagging  for  one 
single  moment. 

Space  prohibits  any  complete  discussion  of  the 
remaining  plays  in  the  cycle  of  Strindberg's  Eleven 
One-acters.  Yet  we  would  mention  Motherly  Love, 
a  variation  on  the  theme  of  Mrs.  Warren.  The 
souteneuse  mother,  with  all  her  loathsome  affectation 
of  wounded  parental  feeling,  plays  judiciously  on  the 
morbidly  filial  conscience  of  a  clean-minded  but 
weak-willed  actress-daughter,  prevents  her  from 
obtaining  respectable  friends  or  advancement  on  the 
stage,  in  order  to  preserve  for  herself  her  sole  pro- 
fessional stock-in-trade. 

Equally  impressive  is  The  Bond,  which  expresses 
in  one  divorce-court  scene  the  whole  mordant 
tragedy  of  wrangling  matrimony  and  authentic 
parental  affection. 

In  a  lighter  vein  is  Playing  with  Fire,  the  one  real 
comedy  which  Strindberg  ever  wrote.  In  this  the 
delightful  menage  of  a  young  son,  a  young  wife,  a 
young  friend  of  the  family,  a  young  charity  cousin,  and 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  105 

a  philistine  but  by  no  means  senile  father,  everybody  is 
flirting  with  everybody  else.  Particularly  admirable  in 
its  mixture  of  the  comic  and  the  ironic  is  the  character 
and  attitude  of  the  conceited  and  ultra-modern  artist- 
husband,  genuinely  jealous  of  that  friend  and  of  that 
wife  whom  he  loves  so  sincerely,  and  yet  throwing 
them  into  each  other's  arms  in  a  compounded  mood 
of  priggish  bravado  and  authentic  affection.  The 
friend,  apprehensive  lest  he  may  have  a  bad  con- 
science, is  anxious  to  take  a  room  in  the  village. 

The  Wife.   Why  don't  you  stay  with  us  ?     Out  with  it. 

The  Friend.  I  don't  know.  I  think  you  ought  to  be  left 
quiet.  Besides  it  might  happen  that  we  should  get  fed  up  with 
each  other. 

The  Wife.  Are  you  fed  up  with  us  already?  I  tell  you,  it 
won't  do.  I  tell  you  that  if  you  stay  out  there  in  the  village, 
people  will  begin  to  talk. 

The  Friend.  Talk?    What  will  they  talk  about? 

The  Wife.  Oh,  you  know  perfectly  well  how  stories  get  put 
together. 

The  Son.  You  stay  here — there's  an  end  of  it.  Let  them  talk. 
If  you  stay  here,  it  goes  without  saying  that  you're  my  wife's 
lover,  and  if  you  stay  in  the  village,  it  goes  without  saying  that 
you've  broken  with  each  other,  or  that  I've  kicked  you  out.  Con- 
sequently, I  think  it  more  honourable  for  you  to  be  regarded  as 
her  lover — eh,  what  ? 

The  Friend.  You  certainly  express  yourself  with  considerable 
lucidity  ;  but  in  a  case  like  this,  I'd  rather  prefer  to  consider  which 
is  honourable  for  you  two. 

As  we  have  already  hinted,  an  additional  bitterness 
had  been  introduced  into  Strindberg's  misogynism  by 
the  unhappiness  of  his  own  first  marriage,  which  was 
dissolved  in  1889.  It  is  this  marriage  which  Strind- 
berg  celebrates  in  that  phenomenal  piece  of  official 
sexual  autobiography,  The  Confession  of  a  Fool,  which 
has  successfully  scandalised  the  whole  Continent  of 
Europe.  In  comparison  with  this  book  the  New 
Machiavelli  is  but  the  tamest  Sunday-school  reading, 


106  MODERNITIES 

and  the  romantic  confessions  of  Mr.  George  Moore 
the  merest  healthy  pranks  of  robustious  youth.     This 
work  throughout    has    the   real    spontaneity   of    the 
genuine  diary  rather  than  the  studied  frankness  of 
the  elaborate  literary  artificer.     The  young  librarian 
is  in  Stockholm.     A  young  lady  makes  advances  to 
him.     "  She  has  an  adventurous  appearance,  hover- 
ing between  the  artist,  the  blue-stocking,  the  daughter 
of  the  house,  the  fille  dejoie,  the  new  woman,  and  the 
coquette."     She  presses  her  suit,  looks  at  him  in  an 
unambiguous  manner,  and  "  he  only  owes  his  virtue  to 
her  extraordinary  ugliness."     He  is  introduced  to  her 
friends,  the  Baron  and  Baroness  X.      He  becomes  the 
ami  de  famille.      But  the  demon  of  sex  is  at  work,  and 
simply  through  keeping  step  with  her  in  walking  he 
will  experience  a  unification  of  their  whole  nervous 
systems.      Honourable  man  that  he  is,  he  runs  away 
from  danger,  starts  for  Paris  in  a  steamship,  and  is 
seen  off  amid  the  combined  tears  of  the  married  pair. 
The  ship  sails.      His  nerves  break  down  ;  and  in  an 
hysterical  paroxysm  he  insists  on  being  disembarked, 
is  attended  by  a  priest  and  doctor  at  a  small  hotel, 
and  returns  post-haste  to  Stockholm.     The  Baroness 
runs  away  to  a  watering-place.     But  matters   only 
progress  with  even   greater  rapidity  on   her  return. 
The  Baron  is  largely  occupied  with  a  cousin  ;  and  an 
official  declaration  takes  place  between  the  wife  and 
the  lover.     With  ultra-modern  honesty  they  imme- 
diately apprise  the  husband,  who  while  giving  them 
the   widest    margin   within   which    to   exercise    their 
platonic  affections,  yet  reposes  implicit  trust  in  their 
combined  honour.     A  financial  crash,  however,  dis- 
poses  of  the  Baron  ;  and  the  gentleman  is   landed 
with  his  lady.     There  ensue  all  the  joys  and  agonies 
of  a  ten-years'  union.     The  couple  are  linked  in  the 
burning  bonds  of  a  mutual  love  and  a  mutual  hate. 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  107 

The  author  has  to  sacrifice  his  own  well-being  and 
career  to  push  forward  his  wife  in  her  amateurish 
efforts  in  journalism  and  acting.  From  that  time 
"legal  prostitution  enters  into  the  marriage.  .  .  ." 
She  belongs  to  the  public,  she  makes  up  and  dresses 
for  the  public,  and  she  consequently  becomes  "  a 
prostitute  who  will  finally  send  in  her  bill  for  such 
and  such  services." 

The  moods  alternate  with  the  regularity  of  a  pendu- 
lum. If  at  one  moment  "  the  nest  of  love  has  become 
transformed  into  a  dog-kennel,"  and  the  author  is 
morbidly  jealous  of  nearly  every  man  and  every 
woman  with  whom  his  wife  has  the  slightest  acquaint- 
ance, strikes  his  wife,  and  endeavours  to  drown  her  ; 
it  is  only  subsequently,  in  the  last  stages  of  servile 
uxoriousness,  to  idolise  her  again  as  a  martyr  and  as 
a  saint.  Six  times  does  he  leave  her  (expending  on  one 
occasion  in  debauchery  the  proceeds  of  his  pawned 
wedding-ring),  and  six  times  does  he  return,  only  to 
draw  up  at  last  this  monstrous  dossier  of  his  con- 
jugal life:  "The  story  is  at  an  end,  my  beloved 
one  ;  I  have  revenged  myself ;  the  account  is 
squared." 

Not  altogether  inexplicably,  Strindberg  has  been 
much  attacked  on  the  score  of  this  book.  He  has 
been  charged  with  wickedly  defaming  an  innocent 
and  deserving  woman.  Yet  even  though  the  book 
be  objectively  false,  it  is  subjectively  true.  It  is  im- 
possible to  doubt  its  prodigious  sincerity,  even  though 
this  merely  be  the  implicit  sincerity  of  persecution 
mania.  Every  single  nuance  of  the  emotions  of  a 
man  who  honestly  thinks  that  he  is  being  unscrupu- 
lously exploited  is  faithfully  described.  The  book 
may  shock  by  its  vehement  coldness,  its  abnormal 
callousness,  its  matter-of-fact  explicitness  ;  yet  from 
the  literary  standpoint,  its  entire  absence  of  affectation, 


108  MODERNITIES 

the  drastic  ease  of  its  simplicity,  the  swift  naturalness 
of  its  diction,  cannot  fail  to  convince.  It  stands  out 
from  the  whole  of  European  literature  as  the  super- 
lative masterpiece  of  suspicious  love  and  monstrous 
morbid  hate. 

In  the  great  novel,  By  the  Open  Sea  (1890),  Strind- 
berg's  Nietzschean  mood  achieves  its  grand  zenith. 
The  hero,  Axel  Borg  (whom  we  may  already  remem- 
ber from  The  Red  Room),  "  instead  of,  like  the  weak 
Christians,  embracing  a  God  outside  himself,  took 
what  he  could  seize  with  his  own  hands  and  in  his 
own  self,  and  sought  to  make  his  own  personality 
into  a  complete  type  of  humanity."  Borg,  who  com- 
bines with  the  ideals  of  the  superman  the  hyper- 
sensitiveness  of  the  neurotic,  lives  the  single  life  as 
an  inspector  of  fishery  in  a  little  village  on  the  Swedish 
coast,  where  the  sea  "  frightens  not  like  the  forest 
with  its  dark  mystery,  but  brings  quietude  like  an 
open  great  big  true  eye."  He  is  pursued  and  caught 
by  an  over-sexed  young  woman,  realises  her  worth- 
lessness,  and  sails  out  to  commit  suicide. 

"  Out  toward  the  new  Star  of  Christmas,  ran  his  voyage,  out 
over  the  Sea,  the  All-Mother,  from  whose  bosom  the  first  spark  of 
life  was  kindled,  the  inexhaustible  source  of  fertility  and  love,  life's 
origin  and  life's  foe." 

This  book,  with  its  splendid  nature-descriptions, 
the  tragic  dignity  of  its  hero,  and  the  azure  swiftness 
of  its  limpid  style,  is  one  of  Strindberg's  most  impres- 
sive feats.  Yet  even  here  the  author's  characteristic 
traits  can  be  distinctly  traced.  The  noble  male  is 
ruined  by  a  despicable  woman  ;  while  here,  too, 
the  cosmic  mysticism  of  the  professed  atheist  (whose 
mood  can  perhaps  be  best  expressed  by  the  worn 
cliche  of  "  being  in  tune  with  the  infinite "),  reveals 
only  too  clearly  the  emotional  bias  of  a  fundament- 
ally religious  temperament. 


AUGUST   STKINDBERG  109 

This  temperament  was  soon  to  manifest  itself  in 
the  most  tragic  form.  Jaded  with  literature,  and  un- 
happy again  in  his  second  marriage  with  the  Austrian 
authoress,  Frida  Uhl,  in  1893,  Strindberg  embarked 
on  the  study  of  chemistry,  took  rooms  in  the  Latin 
quarter,  attended  the  Sorbonne  laboratories,  and 
imagined  that  he  had  revolutionised  science  by  the 
discovery  of  a  new  element  in  sulphur.  He  had  by 
now  attained  the,  to  him,  crucial  period  of  the  late 
"  forties,"  and  the  chronic  excesses  of  his  emotionalism 
now  assumed  a  religious  form,  to  the  accompaniment 
of  the  most  acute  mania  of  persecution. 

His  experiences  in  these  years,  1895-8,  are  de- 
scribed in  the  Inferno  and  the  Legends,  works  which 
the  mystic  and  the  psychologist  can  read  with  equal 
if  heterogeneous  edification.  In  these  books,  which 
are  based  on  Strindberg's  diaries  during  the  actual 
time,  the  aberrations  of  a  disorganised  brain  are  set 
out  with  the  most  unconscious  literary  art.  His 
delusions  became  systematised  with  all  the  ingenuity 
of  the  paranoiac.  Every  casual  suggestion  thrown  up 
by  his  memory,  or  the  events  and  associations  of 
every-day  life,  every  bit  of  science  that  he  had  ever 
studied  or  of  mysticism  that  he  had  ever  felt,  are  all 
utilised  to  build  the  infernal  scheme  of  his  mania. 
He  is  "  the  innocent  sacrifice  of  an  unjust  persecu- 
tion," the  prey  of  unknown  powers,  the  conducting- 
point  of  electrical  streams  from  unknown  agencies. 
He  asks  for  a  miracle  and  sees  in  the  heavens  the 
ten  commandments  and  the  name  of  Jehovah.  His 
friend  Popoffski  (in  point  of  fact,  the  Polish-German 
novelist  Przybeszewski)  has  come  to  Paris  ;  it  is  with 
the  sole  object  of  killing  him  by  poison.  His  usual 
seat  at  his  usual  cafe  is  occupied  ;  he  is  the  victim 
of  a  universal  conspiracy.  Eventually  the  hells  of  his 
torment  burn  themselves  out  in  an  abject  ecstasy  of 


110  MODERNITIES 

atonement,  in    Catholicism,   Swedenborgianism,   and 
the  bastard  hybrid  of  a  scientific  occultism. 

From  this  time  the  religious  obsession  sits  upon 
most,  if  not  all,  of  his  subsequent  work.  To  this 
mood  are  due  the  officially  religious  dramas  To 
Damascus,  Midsummer,  the  extremely  weak  Advent  and 
Easter,  his  new-found  theory  of  The  Conscious  Will  in 
the  World- History,  his  historical  dramas  (where  the 
characters,  particularly  Luther,  were  too  subjectively 
conceived  to  be  historically  convincing),  and  his 
Dream-Play  (where  telephones,  lawyers,  theatres, 
enchanted  woods,  Indra's  daughter,  military  officers, 
married  couples,  casinos,  poets,  and  ballet-dancers 
all  combine  to  weave  the  filmy  phantasmagoria 
of  a  Buddhistic  reality).  We  may  also  mention  in 
this  connection  the  Blue  Books,  the  official  synthesis 
of  his  life  (a  series  of  miniature  essays  on  such 
apparently  heterogeneous  subjects  as,  inter  alia,  Troy, 
Christ,  electro-chemistry,  botany,  surds,  Assyriology, 
optics,  geology,  Hammurabi,  astrology,  morphium, 
Swedenborgianism,  spermatozoic  analysis,  mystic 
numbers,  Kipling,  and  Jehovah). 

Although,  speaking  generally,  Strindberg  achieved 
his  masterpieces  during  the  period  of  his  atheism, 
many  of  his  later  works  have  indisputable  value.  The 
play  Intoxication  (1900),  for  instance  (though  the  killing 
through  sheer  unconscious  force  of  will,  by  the  hero, 
of  the  child  of  one  mistress,  in  order  to  gratify  the 
caprice  of  another,  may  strike  the  unimaginative 
critic  as  slightly  melodramatic,  and  his  eventual  retire- 
ment into  a  Catholic  monastery  as  somewhat  of  an 
anti-climax),  is  a  work  of  extraordinary  power. 

So  also  is  the  Death  Dance  (1900),  in  which  the 
middle-aged  captain  and  his  passe'e  wife  grind  each 
other  to  ruin  and  despair  beneath  the  mutual  mill- 
stones of  their  hate,  "  that  most   unreasonable  hate, 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  111 

without  ground,  without  object,  but  also  without  end." 
Does  not  the  author  plumb  the  extreme  depths  of 
human  malevolence  in  the  passage  in  which  the  wife 
in  company  with  her  cousin  is  expecting  her  paralytic 
husband  to  fall  down  dead  ? 

Karl.  What  are  you  looking  at  over  there,  dear,  by  the  wall? 

Alice.  I'm  seeing  if  he's  tumbled  down. 

Karl.  Has  he  tumbled  down  ? 

Alice.  No,  more's  the  pity.     He  deceives  me  in  everything. 

We  would  also  mention  the  Maeterlinckian  beauty 
of  the  Crown  Bride  and  Swan  White  (1900),  the 
heroine  of  which  is  an  idealisation  of  the  author's 
third  wife,  the  actress,  Harriet  Bosse  ;  the  delicate 
fantasy  of  Tales  (1908) ;  and  the  Swedish  Miniatures, 
of  which  the  Sacrifice  Dance  in  particular  is  a  positive 
masterpiece  of  swift  bloodiness. 

Cruelty,  moreover,  is  an  integral  element  in  at  any 
rate  primitive  religion.  This  may  conceivably  explain 
why,  faithfully  fulfilling  what  he  personally  professed 
to  have  found  a  joyless  duty,  Strindberg  successfully 
performed  in  Black  Flags,  his  celebrated  roman  a  clef, 
the  intellectual  flaying  and  dismemberment  of  all 
Stockholm  Bohemia.  It  is  amusing  to  remember 
that  he  successfully  consulted  the  oracle  of  the  Book  of 
Job  before  he  published  the  work  in  1905,  to  face  the 
protesting  shrieks  of  his  victims  with  all  the  devout 
conscience  of  some  early  priest  of  Thor  who  gravely 
officiates  at  some  blood-stained  human  sacrifice. 

It  is  outside  the  purpose  of  this  essay  to  discuss 
whether  these  descriptions  of  the  intellectual  and 
sexual  clique  of  the  Swedish  capital  constitute  a  fair 
portrait  or  a  monstrous  defamation,  or  whether,  for 
instance,  Hanna  Paj  is  a  malignant  travesty  or  a 
euphemistic  delineation  of  that  lady  whom  all  who 
have  the  slightest  acquaintance  with  the  Continental 
Feminist  Movement  will  immediately  recognise. 


112  MODERNITIES 

As  a  sheer  piece  of  satire  the  book  waves  its 
black  flag  unchallenged  amid  all  the  fluttering  multi- 
coloured pennons  of  modern  European  literature. 
What  matter  if  the  characterisation  be  true  or  false  ? 
So  far,  at  any  rate,  as  the  non-Swedish  reader  is 
concerned,  the  illusion  is  complete.  Kilo,  "the 
little  bookseller,  with  the  suffering  eyes  of  a  sick 
dog " ;  Falkenstrom,  the  idealist,  whose  wife  is 
induced  by  her  bosom  friend  to  join  some  alleged 
monstrous  cosmopolitan  masonic  sisterhood  ;  Hanna 
Paj,  the  feminist  lecturer,  the  fury  with  the  flag  of 
hate  on  which  was  written  the  device,  "  Revenge  on 
Man "  ;  Smartman,  the  debonair  intriguing  editor 
with  his  two  sets  of  rooms — all  these  pictures  of  M  the 
galley-slaves  of  ambition  linked  together  in  the 
fetters  of  interest,  these  murderers  and  thieves  who 
steal  each  other's  thoughts,  addresses,  friends,  and 
personalities,"  are  perfectly  convincing.  Above  all 
there  stands  out  the  delineation  of  Lars  Peter 
Zachrisson,  "  the  intellectual  cannibal,"  the  "  broker 
of  literature,  the  promoter  of  mutual  admiration 
societies,  the  speculator  in  reputations,  the  founder 
of  syndicates  for  the  manufacture  of  celebrities," 
the  morphia  maniac,:  the  tippler  "  who  laughs 
humorously  in  his  moustache  and  weeps  tears  of 
whisky  from  his  eyes,"  the  father  of  "  that  resurrected 
corpse,  that  wandering  shame,  whose  face  was  known 
to  all,  and  who  was  branded  with  his  own  name." 
And  how  devilish  is  the  description  of  this  domestic 
hell  of  human  hate,  where  he  mocks  his  wife  on  her 
failing  charms  and  encourages  her  gluttony  with  the 
specific  object  of  spoiling  her  figure,  where  the 
mother  in  her  turn  brings  up  her  children  like  a 
breed  of  dachshunds  whom  she  sets  to  bait  their 
father,  and  where  the  two  spouses  yet  feel  some 
inexplicable   need    of    being    together   in    the    same 


AUGUST   STRINDBERG  113 

room  for  the  purpose  of  that  mutual  nagging  and 
mutual  reviling  which  constituted  the  chief  interest 
in  their  miserable  existence. 

To  sum  up,  we  have  seen  how  throughout  his  life 
the  persecution  mania  of  Strindberg  expressed  itself 
in  his  attitude  to  sex,  religion,  and  society,  as  like  at 
once  some  veritable  Rhadamanthine  recorder,  and 
some  cowering  victim  of  divine  vengeance,  he  dis- 
penses and  fears  those  words  of  doom  in  his  black 
adamant  of  diction.  Yet  it  is  impossible  casually  to 
brush  the  man  aside  as  some  mere  paranoiac.  The 
very  torments  of  his  soul  fructified  in  the  stupendous 
genius  of  his  intellectual  production.  With  all  his 
perversities,  with  all  his  aberrations,  Strindberg 
remains  the  blackest,  and  in  his  own  particular 
spheres  the  most  drastic,  intelligence  in  the  whole 
of  our  European  literature. 


H 


THE   WELTANSCHAUUNG  OF   MISS 
MARIE   CORELLI 

"  By  my  faith  I  would  as  soon  listen  to  the  gabbling  of  geese  in  a 
farmyard  as  to  the  silly  glibness  of  such  inflated  twaddling,  such  mawkish 
sentiment,  such  turgid  garrulity,  such  ranting  verbosity." 

"  Clearness  of  thought,  brilliancy  of  style,  beauty  of  diction,  all  these 
were  hers  united  to  consummate  ease  of  expression  and  artistic  skill." 

The  above  quotations,  extracted  from  Ardath  and 
from  the  autobiographical  if  unofficial  description  of 
Mavis  Clair  in  The  Sorrows  of  Satan,  are  well  adapted 
to  express  the  two  extreme  views  concerning  the 
merits  and  the  demerits  of  the  lady  who,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  certainly  occupies  the  most  conspicuous 
position  among  our  English  women-novelists.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  such  divergent  views  should  be 
provoked  by  a  character  who,  however  simple  she 
may  be  in  her  own  personal  psychology,  is  from  the 
literary  standpoint  essentially  complex. 

In  The  Romance  of  Two  Worlds,  for  instance,  the 
firstfruits  of  her  literary  genius,  the  novelist's  theory 
of  the  "  Soul  Germ "  and  her  conception  of  the 
u  Electric  Principle  of  Christianity  "  running  through 
the  whole  cosmology  would  seem  unmistakably  to 
foreshadow  the  Bergsonian  theory  of  the  elan  de  vie, 
while  the  subtly  delineated  character  of  the  twentieth- 
century  Chaldaean  magician,  Heliobas,  "  who  never 
promises  to  effect  a  cure  unless  he  sees  that  the 
person  who  comes  to  be  cured  has  a  certain  con- 
nection with  himself,"  bears  a  distinct  analogy  to 
the   cabalistic   mysticism    of    Mr.    Aleister    Crowley. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  grim  tragedy  entitled   Ven- 

111 


MISS   MARIE   CORELLI  115 

detta  is  in  almost  equal  degrees  reminiscent  of  the 
stark  inexorableness  of  ^Eschylus,  and  of  the  human, 
all-too-human,  humanity  of  Mr.  Walter  Melville. 
In  Ardath,  that  "tale  of  beauty,  of  horror,  and  of 
extraordinary  amours"  (if  we  may  quote  from  the 
authorised  biography  of  our  novelist),  a  subject-matter 
that  might  well  have  emanated  from  the  pen  of  a 
Pierre  Louys,  is  handled  with  the  unimpeachable 
correctness  of  a  Samuel  Smiles.  So,  too,  the  great 
Tendenzroman  "  Wormwood  "  is  a  dexterous  combina- 
tion of  the  macabre  phantasy  of  Mr.  Ranger  Gull  and 
the  ethical  "uplift"  of  Mr.  Guy  Thorne.  She  is, 
moreover,  an  authoress  who  is  keenly  alive  to  the 
social  problems  of  the  day,  treating  in  Boy  and  The 
Mighty  Atom  of  the  Wedekindian  problem  of  the  influ- 
ence of  free-thought  on  the  mind  of  puberty  (though 
it  must  be  confessed  that  her  solution  of  that  exceed- 
ingly thorny  problem  is  by  no  means  identical  with 
that  of  the  slightly  cynical  author  of  Springs  Awaken- 
ing), and  handling  in  The  Murder  of  Delicia  the  almost 
equally  delicate  subject  of  the  modern  maquereau. 

While,  too,  Miss  Corelli  has  enriched  the  literature 
of  Anti-Semitism  with  such  novel  and  crushing 
phrases  as  " Jew-speculator,"  "Jew-proprietor  of  a 
stock-jobbing  newspaper,"  "  the  fat  Jew-spider  of 
several  newspaper  webs,"  her  denunciation  of  certain 
phases  of  Continental  Christianity  as  u  the  sickening 
and  barbarous  superstition  everywhere  offered  as  the 
representation  of  sublime  Deity "  indicates  some 
cleavage  between  her  own  Protestant  theology  and 
that  rigid  Ultramontanism  which  would  appear  now- 
adays to  be  one  of  the  essential  qualifications  for 
the  really  full-fledged  Anti-Semite.  And  if  at  times 
with  the  thyrsus  of  her  ecstatic  style  she  is  frequently 
the  Juvenalian  flagellant  of  that  u  brilliant  fashion- 
able dress-loving  crowd  of  women  who  spend  most 


116  MODERNITIES 

of  their  time  in  caring  for  their  complexions  and 
counting  their  lovers,"  her  features  exhibit  not  so 
much  the  sadic  grin  of  the  maenad  as  the  seraphic 
loving-kindness  of  some  mediaeval  saint  dumped 
down  by  a  caprice  of  a  fantastic  Providence  amid  all 
the  howling  welter  of  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth 
centuries.  While  too  such  phrases  as  "  retrospec- 
tive and  introspective  repentance  "  show  an  almost 
Jamesian  preciosity  in  the  fine-drawn  distinction 
between  the  repentance  for  the  sins  that  have  been 
already  committed  in  the  past  and  for  those  which 
are  about  to  be  committed  in  the  future,  and  between 
the  repentance  which  takes  place  within  the  four 
corners  of  the  human  soul,  and  that  which  occurs 
within  some  other  sphere  of  psychological  activity, 
our  lady's  entire  lack,  generally  speaking,  of  all  the 
affectations  of  our  ultra-modern  subtlety  are  more 
reminiscent  of  the  downright  horse-sense  of  President 
Roosevelt  or  the  transparent  but  by  no  means 
necessarily  shallow  simplicity  of  such  writers  as  Mrs. 
L.  T.  Meade,  Mrs.  Annie  Swan,  Mr.  Charles  Garvice, 
and  Mr.  William  Le  Queux. 

It  is  then  in  view  of  the  fundamentally  complex 
problem  constituted  by  Miss  Corelli  that,  disregard- 
ing alike  the  convention  of  her  admirers  that  she 
is  above  criticism,  and  the  convention  of  her  detrac- 
tors that  she  is  beneath  it,  we  propose  to  examine 
our  authoress  with  the  maximum  of  seriousness  at 
our  command,  and  to  await  with  sanguine  interest 
the  result  of  what  from  the  point  of  view  at  any  rate 
of  the  critic  is  so  revolutionary  a  procedure.  The 
contents  of  at  any  rate  the  majority  of  the  volumes 
of  Miss  Corelli  being  necessarily  familiar  to  all 
readers  of  culture,  we  propose  to  confine  our  analysis 
to  a  survey  of  the  cardinal  points  in  our  lady's 
Weltanschauung.    Strange  though  it  may  seem  to  u  the 


MISS   MARIE   CORELLI  117 

fashionable  atheism  of  the  day "  (if  we  may  quote 
one  of  our  authoress's  favourite  and  most  persistent 
phrases),  it  is  the  religious  instinct  which  supplies  the 
key  of  the  Corellian  psychology.  In  this  connec- 
tion it  is  interesting  to  remember  parenthetically  the 
pretty  anecdote  of  how  when  the  future  novelist,  then 
quite  a  little  girl,  was  rejoicing  in  the  sobriquet  of 
"  The  Rosebud,"  she  would  always  have  the  nocturnal 
consciousness  that  angels  were  present  in  her  bed- 
room, and  that  Dr.  Mackay,  the  mid-Victorian  litte- 
rateur who  had  adopted  the  child  at  the  early  age  of 
three  months,  is  reported  to  have  made  the  gentle 
but  not  inapposite  remark,  "  Never  mind,  Dearie ! 
It  is  there,  you  may  be  sure,  and  if  you  behave  just  as 
if  you  saw  it,  you  will  certainly  see  it  some  day." 

It  was  perhaps  a  few  years  later  that  the  little  girl 
dreamt  of  founding  a  new  religious  order,  and  that 
an  education  at  a  French  convent  left  on  her  virgin 
soul  that  white  cachet  which  even  the  corruptness  of 
Edwardian  society,  "when  the  infidelity  of  wives  is 
most  unhappily  becoming  common — far  too  common 
for  the  peace  and  good  repute  of  society,"  has 
signally  failed  to  in  any  way  pollute  (if  as  a  mere 
matter  of  grammatical  conviviality  we  may  venture  to 
split  an  infinitive  with  our  distinguished  consaur). 
When,  however,  Miss  Corelli  attained  the  ripeness  of 
complete  womanhood,  the  voice  of  the  angels  would 
appear  to  have  whispered  in  her  ear  the  great  in- 
junction "  to  leave  the  world  a  little  better  than  she 
found  it,"  and  the  sacred  odour  of  her  exceedingly 
important  mission  is  to  be  detected  practically  in 
every  work  that  has  issued  from  her  pen.  Hold- 
ing, like  Torquemada,  Mr.  Torrie,  Attila,  Loyola,  and 
the  late  Dr.  Elijah  Dowie  and  many  other  great 
religious  enthusiasts  of  all  epochs,  that  conversion  is 
the  most  efficient  method  of  spiritual  improvement, 


118  MODERNITIES 

she  concentrates  her  fire  with  especial  vehemence  on 
the  "  women-atheists,  who  had  voluntarily  crushed  out 
the  sweetness  of  the  sex  within  them,  the  unnatural 
product  of  an  unnatural  age,"  who  have  ll  as  haughty 
a  scorn  of  Christ  and  His  teaching  as  any  unbeliev- 
ing Jew,"  and  on  "  the  common  boor  who,  reading  his 
penny  Radical  paper,  thinks  he  can  dispense  with 
God  and  talks  of  the  carpenter's  son  of  Judaea  with 
the  same  easy  flippancy  and  scant  reverence  as  his 
companion  in  sin." 

Thus  it  comes  that  Miss  Corelli,  with  her  full  share 
of  that  intolerance  which  is  the  classical  concomitant 
of  all  true  religion,  would  close  the  harbour  of  Eng- 
land to  the  exiled  Jesuits  of  France,  and  exclude  the 
Jews  from  their  prominent  position  in  contemporary 
society  and  finance.  So  far  from  shedding  a  single 
tear  over  the  tragic  death  of  Zola,  she  gloats  with 
righteous  gusto  over  his  asphyxiation,  which  she 
ascribes  to  a  specific  piece  of  theological  revengeful- 
ness  on  the  part  of  an  orthodox  and  insulted  Provi- 
dence. At  times  her  strictures  come  nearer  home, 
and  more  frequently  perhaps  than  any  other  woman- 
novelist  of  the  day  does  she  castigate  those  Episco- 
palian clergymen  who  indulge  in  the  mental  and 
physical  enjoyment  of  illicit  sex  in  wilful  disregard  of 
the  most  fundamental  elements  of  their  professional 
etiquette,  "the  vicious  and  worldly  clerical  bon- 
vivants  .  .  .  talking  society  scandal  with  as  much 
easy  glibness  as  any  dissolute  lay  decadent  that  ever 
cozened  another  man's  wife  away  from  honour  in  the 
tricky  disguise  of  a  soul."  In  Thelma,  for  instance,  the 
lascivious  minister  of  Christ  intent  on  compassing  the 
almost  compulsory  seduction  of  the  prettiest  of  his  own 
parishioners,  while  his  u  conscience  was  enveloped 
in  a  moral  leather  casing  of  hypocrisy  and  arro- 
gance," is  a  piece  of  characterisation  which  in  its  own 


MISS   MARIE   CORELLI  119 

particular  line  of  vice  forms  a  fitting  analogue  to  the 
monstrous  clergyman  in  Mrs.  Voynich's  Jack  Raymond. 
So  far,  moreover,  as  the  nuances  of  dogma  are  con- 
cerned our  teacher  takes  the  delicate  and  middle 
course,  being  as  deeply  shocked  by  the  ritualistic 
excesses  of  the  High  Church  as  by  what  Mr.  G.  K. 
Chesterton  has  epigrammatically  described  as  the 
"  tea-leaves  of  Nonconformity."  In  fact  her  theology 
may  perhaps  be  crystallised  in  the  following  formula, 
which  however  difficult  in  actual  practice  is  from  the 
stylistic  standpoint  of  perfect  simplicity  : 

"Why  should  we  be  followers  of  Luther,  Wesley,  or  any  other 
human  teacher  or  preacher  when  all  that  is  necessary  is  that  we 
should  be  followers  of  Christ  ? " 

But  Miss  Corelli  is  no  credulous  bigot.  She  is  as 
sceptical  of  the  historical  trustworthiness  of  part  of  the 
initial  chapters  of  Genesis  as  Colonel  Ingersoll,  Mr. 
G.  W.  Foote,  or  Mr.  Horatio  Bottomley.  Let  us  quote 
from  Free  Opinions  the  following  eloquent  parenthesis  : 
"  A  legend,  which,  like  that  of  the  Tree  of  Good  and 
Evil  itself  requires  stronger  confirmation  than  history 
as  yet  witnesseth,  which,  by  the  way,  was  evidently 
invented  by  man  himself  for  his  own  convenience." 

Let  us,  however,  now  turn  from  Miss  Corelli's 
solitary  excursion  into  the  sphere  of  the  Higher 
Criticism  to  some  brief  survey  of  her  more  positive 
and  constructive  philosophy. 

The  Corellian  cosmology  is  most  fully  expounded 
in  The  Romance  of  Two  Worlds.  This  novel  is  the  story 
of  a  young  girl  who,  sick  in  body  and  mind,  visits  the 
Continent.  She  makes  the  acquaintance  of  a  Chaldaean 
mage  of  magnetic  personality  called  Heliobas.  Helio- 
bas,  realising  at  the  first  sight  of  the  young  girl  "  that 
her  state  of  health  precludes  her  from  the  enjoyment 
of  life  natural  to  her  sex  and  age,"  gives  her  to  drink 
of  some  rare  and  special  potion  with  the  result  that 


120  MODERNITIES 

her  soul,  dissociated  for  the  time  being  from  her  body, 
takes  a  flying  trip  through  space  and  purgatory,  and  the 
lady  awakens  to  a  more  complete  spiritual  harmony. 
In  this  book  the  authoress's  individual  theories  of  the 
Soul  Germ  and  the  Electric  Circle  are  expressed  in  volu- 
minous digressions  and  dialogues  whose  inexhaustible 
opulence  might  well  be  called  a  Platonic  Dialectic 
brought  up  to  the  date  of  nineteenth-century  science. 

This  fusion  of  science  and  mysticism,  which  at  first 
sight  seem  as  far  apart  as  the  poles  or  the  sexes,  into 
a  harmonious  if  heterogeneous  unity,  can  also  be 
traced  in  the  Corellian  physiology.  Thus  in  Thelma 
we  meet  the  unfortunate  creature  Sigurd,  "  an  infant 
abortion,  the  evil  fruit  of  an  evil  deed,"  destined  to  so 
tragic  and  well-described  a  death,  while  in  Temporal 
Power  we  are  confronted  with  the  strange  character 
of  Paul  Zouche,  "the  human  eccentricity,  the  result 
of  an  amour  between  a  fiend  and  an  angel." 

In  the  sphere  of  ethics,  Miss  Corelli  is  careful  to 
avoid  that  misplaced  originality  which  is  so  often  the 
gaudy  masquerade  for  a  pallid  and  degenerate  licenti- 
ousness. Our  authoress  finds  sufficient  both  for  her 
own  personal  requirements  and  the  spiritual  health  of 
her  reader  in  those  good  old  maxims  enshrined  in  the 
Bible,  the  Family  Herald,  and  the  copy-books  of  all  self- 
respecting  seminaries.  Good  is  Good,  she  says,  and 
Right  is  Right.  We  may  note  also  the  Corellian 
principle  of  the  inevitable  triumph  of  the  hero  or 
heroine  and  the  inevitable  damnation  of  the  villain  or 
villainess,  a  principle  which  bears  a  distinct  affinity  to 
the  Jewish  and  Christian  doctrines  of  Recompense, 
the  ^Eschylean  doctrine  of  i/e/xecr*?,  and  the  dramaturgy 
of  the  Transpontine  Theatre.  It  may  perhaps  be 
urged  by  the  ultra-modern  critic  that  novels  of  the 
stamp  of  Anne  Veronica,  The  New  Machiavelli,  or  Esther 
Waters,  where  sin  emerges  from  its  slough,  sometimes 


MISS   MARIE   COREELI  121 

in  triumph,  yet  always  in  dignity  and  comfort,  have 
a  closer  correspondence  with  the  actual  facts  of  our 
modern  civilisation.  But  our  authoress  would  no 
doubt  confidently  retort  that  it  is  the  pious  duty  of  the 
moral  missionary  to  censor  ruthlessly  such  pernicious 
intelligence,  and  that  she  is  proud  to  prefer  the  higher 
if  not  always  accepted  truths  of  ethics  to  the  lower  and 
degrading  truths  of  a  sordid  reality. 

This  sublime  principle  of  Divine  Justice  is  per- 
haps best  exemplified  in  Holy  Orders.  In  this  extra- 
ordinary book,  Jacqueline,  the  local  prostitute  of  a 
picturesque  English  village,  marries  a  man  named 
Nordheim,  "  one  of  the  smartest  Jew-millionaires  that 
ever  played  with  the  money-markets  of  the  world." 
But  the  wages  of  sin,  though  for  a  few  years  a  motor 
car  and  a  Rockefellerian  income,  turn  out  in  the 
long  run  to  be  death  in  a  balloon  in  the  illicit  com- 
pany of  an  aristocratic  drunkard.  For  sheer  psy- 
chology and  for  sheer  English  the  following  portrayal 
of  the  villain  which  represents  the  cream  of  two  or 
three  separate  passages  merits  quotation. 

"  Claude  Ferrers  ?  Why,  he  is  a  famous  aeronaut ;  a  man  who 
spends  fabulous  sums  of  money  in  the  construction  of  balloons  and 
aeroplanes  and  airships.  He  is  the  owner  of  a  gorgeous  steerable 
balloon  in  which  all  the  pretty  'smart'  women  take  trips  with  him 
for  change  of  air.  He  is  an  atheist,  a  degenerate,  and — one  of  the 
most  popular  '  Souls '  in  decadent  English  society — just  to  have  a 
look  at  the  fat  smooth-faced  sensualist  and  voluptuary  whose  reputa- 
tion for  shameless  vice  makes  him  the  pride  and  joy  of  Upper- 
Ten  Jezebels  will  help  you  along  like  a  gale  of  wind.  Claude 
Ferrers  is  a  modern  Heliogabalus  in  his  very  modern  way,  and  by 
dint  of  learning  a  few  salacious  witticisms  out  of  Moliere  and  Baude- 
laire he  almost  persuades  people  to  think  him  a  wit  and  a  poet." 

In  view,  no  doubt,  of  the  high  moral  tendency  of 
most  of  the  comedies  of  Moliere,  who  in  Tartuffe, 
for  instance,  satirises  hypocrisy  almost  as  effectively, 
if  with  a  less   palpable  directness   than   does    Miss 


122  MODERNITIES 

Corelli  herself,  and  in  view  of  the  essentially  religi- 
ous or  at  any  rate  mystical  spirit  that  animates  so 
many  of  the  poems  of  the  author  of  Les  Fleurs  de  Mai, 
it  must  be  reluctantly  confessed  that  Miss  Corelli  is 
more  impressive  as  a  moralist  and  as  a  psychologist 
than  as  a  woman  of  letters  and  an  expert  in  French 
literature.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  this  slight 
error  may  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  her  acquain- 
tance with  these  authors  may  only  be  second-hand, 
that  she  was  involuntarily  misled  by  the  rhyme  in 
the  two  names,  and  that  her  unimpeachable  principles 
have  debarred  her  from  even  hearing  the  names  of 
such  refined  exponents  of  the  Gallic  spirit  as  M.  Abel 
Hermant  and  M.  Octave  Mirabeau. 

It  is,  of  course,  highly  characteristic  of  our 
authoress's  simplicity  of  vision  that  all  her  characters 
are  either  very,  very,  very  good  or  very,  very,  very  bad. 
Realising  that  complexity  of  temperament  is  but  too 
frequently  the  mere  euphemism  for  dissoluteness  of 
life,  she  is  content  that  her  young  heroes  should  be 
immaculate  with  all  the  immaculacy  of  the  jeunc 
premier,  that  her  middle-aged  heroes  should  be  those 
strong  silent  men  who  have  contributed  so  largely  to 
make  England  what  she  is,  and  that  her  heroines 
should  be  all  equally  typical  and  equally  sweet 
flowers  of  our  English  womanhood.  Her  villains 
invariably  smile  with  all  the  depraved  and  diabolical 
cynicism  of  Drury  Lane,  and  her  villainesses  are 
branded  as  degenerate  super- women  of  intrigue  and 
lust.  And  if  the  authoress  by  thus  delineating  her 
characters  in  the  two  primary  colours  of  black  and 
white  thus  denies  herself  the  intellectual  pleasure 
of  minutely  analysing  some  ultra-modern  soul  torn 
a  myriad  ways  by  unnumbered  and  unmentionable 
emotions,  she  has  the  consolation  that  she  certainly 
points  her  moral  with  a  more  obvious  precision. 


MISS   MARIE   CORELLI  123 

The  only  character  who  in  any  way  suffers  from 
a  complex  temperament  is  Maryllia,  the  sweet-named 
heroine  of  God's  Good  Man.  By  nature  as  white 
and  pure  a  specimen  of  Anglo-Saxon  girlhood  as 
ever  spent  to  some  good  moral  purpose  her  fragrance 
in  the  pages  of  the  prettiest  novelette,  Maryllia  is  so 
corrupted  by  the  fashionable  whirl  of  smart  society, 
"where  without  mincing  matters  it  can  be  fairly 
stated  that  the  aristocratic  Jezebel  is  the  fashionable 
woman  of  the  hour,  while  the  men  vie  with  one 
another  as  to  who  shall  best  screen  her  from  their 
amours  with  themselves,"  that  she  becomes  addicted 
to  the  vice  of  smoking.  God's  Good  Man,  however, 
in  the  person  of  that  high-minded  clergyman  the 
Rev.  John  Walden,  has  the  courage  to  rebuke  her  at 
a  dinner-party  with  an  incivility  which  is,  fortunately, 
more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  fundamental  kind- 
ness of  his  intention  : 

"  I  have  always  been  under  the  impression  that  English  ladies 
never  smoke." 

Maryllia,  it  is  true,  at  first  bridles  at  this  essentially 
well-meant  reprimand,  only,  however,  to  return  finally 
repentant  and  converted  to  her  prospective  husband. 

It  is,  consequently,  not  surprising  to  find  that 
Miss  Corelli's  attitude  to  modern  problems  is  one  of 
a  rugged  and  uncompromising  conservatism.  Thus 
she  disapproves  not  merely  of  smoking  but  also  of 
the  bridge-party  and  the  motor-car  and  of  the 
dtcollete  dress  which  she  so  severely  satirises  in  the 
phrase,  u  the  brief  shoulder-strap  called  by  courtesy  a 
sleeve  which  keeps  her  ladyship's  bodice  in  place." 

Consistently  enough,  also,  in  the  sphereof  philosophy 
she  chaffs  the  agnostic  dilettantism  of  Mr.  Balfour 
with  the  most  delicate  of  badinage :  "  His  study  of  these 
volumes  is  almost  as  profound  as  that  of  Mr.  Balfour 
must  have  been  when  writing  The  Foundations  of  Belief " 


124  MODERNITIES 

and  flicks  with  a  deadly  though  gentle  irony  the  "  sort 
of  cliquey  reputation  and  public  failure  attending  a 
certain  novel  entitled  Marius  the  Epicurean." 

True  Englishwoman  that  she  is,  Miss  Corelli  yields 
to  none  in  her  reverence  for  established  institutions, 
and  does  not  shrink  from  attacking  boldly  the  com- 
plex questions  of  contemporary  royal  and  political 
life.  Thus,  in  the  600-page  romance,  Temporal 
Power,  apparently  disapproving  of  that  democratic 
shuffling  of  the  classes  which  is  so  marked  a  feature 
of  our  ultra-modern  age,  she  treats  with  exquisite  taste 
of  the  problems  of  the  sinister  Semitic  capitalist,  the 
intriguing  politician  who  was  once  a  manufacturer, 
and  of  the  morganatic  marriage  of  a  sailor-prince. 

For  our  authoress  has  at  bottom  a  true  respect 
for  the  social  order  of  England.  What  though  the 
monarch  masquerade  as  an  anarchist  in  Temporal 
Power  and  sign  his  name  in  the  red  letters  of  a 
woman's  blood  ?  Does  not  the  repeated  insistence 
on  the  title  "  Sir  Philip,"  in  referring  to  the  virile 
and  delectable  hero  of  Thelma,  show  that  it  is  less 
society  per  se  than  the  abuses  and  perversions  of 
society  which  constitute  the  target  of  the  Corellian 
invective  ?  Does  not  again  the  following  passage 
show  the  bias  of  a  soul  which  inclines  with  the  sin- 
cerest  sympathy  to  that  innate  munificence  which 
forms  the  chief  petal  in  the  "fine  flower"  of  the 
English  gentry  :  "  They  got  their  overcoats  from  the 
officious  Briggs,  tipped  him  handsomely,  and  departed 
arm  in  arm  ?  "  Does  not  similarly  such  a  phrase  as 
u  a  dignified  grande  dame  clad  in  richest  black  silk " 
show  that  most  generous  of  loyalties  which  will  not 
allow  the  true  majesty  of  the  aristocracy  to  be  im- 
perilled through  the  stinting  of  an  extra  adjective  or 
the  lack  of  a  superlatively  appropriate  dress. 

Unfortunately    many   passages    in    Miss    Corelli's 


MISS   MARIE   CORELLI  125 

novels  may  occasion  her  admirers  some  heart-search- 
ings  as  to  the  reliability  of  her  social  psychology.  In 
such  a  sentence,  for  instance,  as  "  Why  does  an 
English  earl  marry  a  music-hall  singer  ?  Because 
he  has  seen  her  in  tights,"  it  would  appear  that  the 
real  heart  of  the  matter  is  tactfully  adumbrated 
rather  than  specifically  described.  When  again  that 
lecherous  Jew,  David  Jost,  the  chief  villain  in  Temporal 
Power,  is  sitting  at  home  in  his  study  a  few  minutes 
before  midnight,  after  he  had  already  "  supped  in 
private  with  two  or  three  painted  heroines  of  the  foot- 
lights," does  not  our  authoress  attribute  to  the  horrible 
Hebrew  a  capacity  for  concentrating  an  amount  of 
pleasure  into  a  brief  period,  more  consistent  with 
the  powers  of  some  hustling  and  record-breaking 
American  than  with  the  more  protracted  languors  of  the 
Oriental  ?  Similarly,  when  she  writes  that  "the  public 
are  getting  sick  of  having  the  discarded  mistresses  of 
wealthy  Semites  put  forward  for  their  delectation  in 
'leading'  histrionic  parts,"  Miss  Corelli  is  either  invert- 
ing the  more  natural  and  logical  order  of  events,  or 
is  attributing  to  such  isolated  members  of  the  Jewish 
race  as  happen  to  be  licentious  a  retrospective  gener- 
osity in  respect  of  past  kindness  which  however 
gratifying  to  their  co-religionists  seems  somewhat 
inconsistent  with  the  general  trend  of  her  attitude. 

The  Corellian  dialogue  also  frequently  gives 
the  psychologist  food  for  thought.  "  O  God " 
(cried  impetuously  the  heroine  of  Thelma  after 
she  had  listened  virtuously  to  the  illicit  overtures 
of  the  villain,  a  "  lascivious  dandy  and  disciple  of 
no  creed  and  self-worship "),  a  magnificent  glory 
of  disdain  flashing  in  her  jewel-like  eyes,  u  what 
thing  is  this  that  calls  itself  a  man — this  thief  of 
honour — this  pretended  friend  of  me,  the  wife 
of  the  noblest  gentleman  in  the  land !  " 


126  MODERNITIES 

Or  take  again  so  characteristic  a  specimen  as 
the  following  : 

"  You  will  be  made  the  subject  for  the  coarse  jests  of  witticisms 
at  your  expense — your  dearest  friends  will  tear  your  name  to 
shreds — the  newspapers  will  reek  of  your  doings,  and  honest 
housemaids  reading  of  your  fall  from  your  high  estate  will  thank 
God  that  their  souls  and  bodies  are  more  clean  than  yours." 

If,  however,  Miss  Corelli  disdains  the  more  gramo- 
phonic  accuracy  of  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward,  she  is 
none  the  less  perfectly  entitled  to  answer  that  her 
characters  like  those  of  Mr.  G.  Bernard  Shaw,  being 
something  more  than  mere  mechanical  and  objective 
copies  of  humanity,  subserve  the  far  higher  function 
of  being  the  mouthpieces  of  the  subjective  philosophy 
of  their  creator. 

Our  last  quotation,  however,  brings  us  to  the 
burning  question  of  Miss  Corelli's  attitude  towards 
the  sexual  problem.  In  this  connection  it  will  not 
be  without  its  interest  to  draw  some  slight  analogy 
between  Miss  Corelli  and  her  equally  distinguished  if 
not  equally  popular  sister-in-letters,  Mrs.  Elinor  Glyn. 

We  would  remark  in  the  first  place  that  the  sexual 
problem  clutches  Miss  Corelli  hotly  in  its  drastic 
grip.  Her  religious  temperament  may  no  doubt 
occasion  a  profound  and  genuine  abhorrence  for 
physical  sin,  but  as  was  the  case  with  the  even  more 
religious  Tolstoi,  or  that  strangely  interesting  char- 
acter Elfrida  (the  ethical  sexual  reformer  in  Herr 
Frank  Wedekind's  Totentanz),  her  abhorrence  merely 
supplies  an  added  vehemence  to  the  unflinching 
nature  of  her  treatment  and  the  drastic  audacities 
of  her  missionary  work,  while  the  proud  conscious- 
ness of  her  own  personal  virtue  may  conceivably 
entitle  her  to  find  at  once  a  duty  and  a  recompense 
in  the  sanguinary  flagellation  of  her  less  immaculate 
sisters.     Though,  moreover,    a  moral  teacher,  Miss 


MISS   MARIE   CORELLI  127 

Corelli  is  also  a  psychologist,  and  her  aphorism 
"  Men  never  fall  in  love  with  a  woman's  mind,  only 
with  her  body,"  can  be  well  compared  for  its  bold 
but  delicate  cynicism  with  Mrs.  Glyn's  maxim, 
"  Love  is  a  purely  physical  emotion." 

But  Miss  Corelli  with  all  her  unimpeachable 
correctness  is  by  no  means  blind  to  the  tempera- 
mental significance  of  a  grande  passion,  though  of 
course  she  does  not  specialise  on  this  subject  to 
the  same  extent  as  her  distinguished  colleague.  It 
is  none  the  less  instructive  to  compare  Miss  Corelli's 
saving  grace  of  a  grande  passion,  u  the  one  of  those 
faithful  passions  which  sometimes  make  the  greatness 
of  both  man  and  woman  concerned  and  adorn  the 
pages  of  history  with  the  brilliancy  of  deathless 
romance,"  with  the  following  fine  passage  from  Mrs. 
Glyn  in  which  she  admonishes  those  philistine  readers 
**  who  have  no  eye  to  see  God's  world  with  the 
stars  in  it  and  to  whom  Three  Weeks  will  be  but 
the  sensual  record  of  a  passion "  with  a  dignified 
apologia  for  the  life  of  her  heroine — "  Now  some 
of  you  who  read  will  think  her  death  was  just,  in 
that  she  was  not  a  moral  woman,  but  others  will 
hold  with  Paul  that  she  was  the  noblest  lady  who 
ever  wore  a  crown." 

The  latter  quotation,  however,  brings  us  to  an 
important  distinction  in  the  sexual  ethics  of  our 
two  novelists.  For  while  Miss  Corelli  on  the  one 
hand  is  no  respecter  of  persons  and  would  be  pre- 
pared to  treat  an  "  Upper-Ten  Jezebel "  or  a  "  soiled 
dove  of  the  town  "  (if  we  may  borrow  two  typically 
Corellian  phrases)  with  scrupulous  impartiality  ac- 
cording to  their  respective  deserts,  the  novels  of 
Mrs.  Elinor  Glyn  constitute  a  valuable  sexual  hier- 
archy by  which  the  degree  of  license  to  be  enjoyed 
and  condoned  is  in  direct  proportion  to  the  social 


128  MODERNITIES 

rank  of  the  lady  or  her  paramour.     Thus  the  con- 
tinued adultery  on  the  part  of  the  Princess  through- 
out a  period  of  three  weeks  in  the  novel   of  that 
name   is   freed   from  any   taint   of  offensiveness    or 
indignity  by  the  exalted  rank  of  that  royal  personage 
who  is  decorated  in  this  one  book  with  several  sets 
of  stars.     The  ordinary  untitled  gentlewoman,  how- 
ever (if  we  except  Agnes  the  lady  in  Elizabeth's  Visits  to 
America,  who   "had   an   affair  with  her  chauffeur," 
and  the  Mildred  in  Beyond  the  Rocks,  whose  lovers, 
however,  were  "so  well  chosen  and  so  thoroughly 
of  the  right  sort  "),  though  she  may  frequently  infringe 
the   spirit  of  the  seventh  commandment,  is   usually 
far    too    prudent   to    break    the    letter.       Thus    the 
romantic  young  wife  in  Beyond  the  Rocks,  in  spite  of  the 
assiduous  attentions  of  an  extremely  fascinating  peer, 
"  an  ordinary   Englishman  of    the    world  who  had 
lived  and  loved  and  seen  many  lands,"  succeeds  by 
the  most  heroic  self-control  in  preserving  the  techni- 
cal chastity  of  a  Prevostian  demi-vierge.    Note,  how- 
ever, by  way  of  contrast  the  extremely  wide  margin 
which  is  allowed  to  the  hale  and  energetic  duchess  : 
"  Her  path  was  strewn    with  lovers  and  protected 
by  a  proud  and  complacent  husband  who  had  realised 
early  he  never  would  be  master  of  the  situation  and 
had  preferred   peace  to  open  scandal.      She  was  a 
woman  of  sixty  and,  report  said,  still  had  her  lapses." 
But  the  paramount  importance  of  social  etiquette 
in  sexual  relationship  is  most  effectively  illustrated 
in  His  Hour.    This  novel  deals  with  the  mutual  physi- 
cal passion  between  a  barbaric  and  dissolute  Russian 
prince  and  a  typical  and  refined  modern  English- 
woman.    Matters  reach    a    crisis   when   the    prince 
lures  the  lady  by  night  to  the  sinister  solitude  of  a 
deserted  hut.     "  His  splendid  eyes  blazed  with  the 
passion  of  a  wild  beast "  ;  the  lady  faints,  and  when 


MISS   MARIE   CORELLI  129 

she  wakes  up  in  the  morning  of  course  assumes  that 
she  has  been  ravished.  Not  unnaturally  she  is  quite 
upset  that  she  should  have  been  the  victim  of  such 
insulting  behaviour,  "  she,  a  lady,  a  proud  English 
lady."  The  commands  of  society,  however,  are  in- 
exorable in  such  matters  and  she  consequently  writes 
proposing  marriage  with  dignified  irony  to  that  bestial 
nobleman,  who  had,  according  to  her  own  theory, 
put  her  own  status  as  a  gentlewoman  into  such 
delicate  jeopardy  :  "  I  consent — I  have  no  choice 
— I  consent.     Yours  truly,  Tamara  Lorane." 

So  far  as  mere  erotic  description  and  dialogue  is 
concerned,  there  is  very  little  to  choose  between  our 
authoresses.  The  following  passages  are  fair  examples 
of  Mrs.  Glyn's  conception  of  romantic  love-making  : 

"Then,  sweet  Paul,  I  shall  teach  you  many  things,  and  among 
them  I  shall  teach  you  how  to  live." 

"  Beloved,  beloved,"  he  cried,  ■  let  us  waste  no  more  precious 
moments.     I  want  you,  I  want  you,  my  sweet." 

"  My  darling  one,"  the  lady  whispered  in  his  ear,  as  she  lay  in 
his  arms  on  the  couch  of  roses,  crushed  deep  and  half-buried  in 
their  velvet  leaves,  "  this  is  our  soul's  wedding,  in  life  and  in  death 
they  can  never  part  us  more." 

•  ••*••• 

If,  however,  we  would  make  any  distinction  between 
the  respective  techniques  of  the  two  ladies,  we  would 
say  that  while  Mrs.  Glyn  tends  to  exhibit  the  practical 
modernity  of  Mayfair  or  Continental  society,  Miss 
Corelli  is  at  times  more  exotic  and  luxuriant,  at  times 
more  explicit  and  direct,  for  blunt,  plain  woman  that 
she  is,  she  never  even  once  dabbles  in  those  mystic 
messages  of  the  stars  which  Mrs.  Glyn  interprets  with 
so  facile  and  consummate  a  felicity.  We  search  in 
vain,for  instance, in  the  works  of  Mrs.Elinor  Glyn  for  a 
passage  like  the  following,  which  but  for  the  pendent 
nominative  might  quite  well  have  come  out  of  the 

I 


130  MODERNITIES 

Aphrodite  of  M.  Pierre  Louys  or  the  Mafarka  le  Futur- 
iste  of  M.  Marinetti : 

"  This  done,  they  rose  and  began  to  undo  the  fastenings  of  her 
golden  domino-like  garment ;  but  either  they  were  too  slow,  or  the 
fair  priestess  was  impatient,  for  she  suddenly  shook  herself  free  of 
their  hands,  and  loosening  the  gorgeous  mantle  herself  from  its 
jewelled  clasps  it  fell  slowly  from  her  symmetrical  form  on  the 
perfumed  floor  with  a  rustle  as  of  fallen  leaves." 

Again,  the  delicious  sachets  of  Mrs.  Elinor  Glyn's 
diction  never  somehow  exhale  such  whiffs  of  unadul- 
terated English  as  the  following  : 

"  With  the  seduction  of  your  nude  limbs  and  lying  eyes  you 
make  fools,  cowards,  and  beasts  of  men." 

We  may,  perhaps,  conclude  this  portion  of  our  com- 
parative analysis  by  suggesting  for  the  erotic  crest  of 
Mrs.  Elinor  Glyn  a  Debrett  and  an  Almanach  de  Gotha 
enveloped  in  a  silk  and  scented  H  nightie  "  ;  for  that  of 
Miss  Marie  Corelli,  a  volume  of  the  Self-and-Sex  series 
lying  open  between  a  doffed  domino  and  a  crinoline. 

It  is  also  noticeable  that  while  Miss  Corelli,  with 
whatever  detail  she  may  feel  it  her  duty  to  portray  their 
erotic  sins,  is  always  primarily  concerned  with  her 
characters'  ethical  significance  for  good  or  for  evil,  Mrs. 
Glyn  devotes  herself  more  specifically  to  their  physical 
qualifications.  Miss  Corelli's  typical  hero,  for  instance, 
is  the  Rev.  John  Walden,  that  middle-aged  God's 
Good  Man  whose  ripe  dignity  of  manhood  is  subordi- 
nated to  the  description  of  his  more  spiritual  qualities. 
Mrs.  Glyn's  typical  hero  is  the  Paul  of  Three  Weeks,  u  a 
splendid  young  English  animal  of  the  best  class." 

We  thus  find  that  the  space  which  Mrs.  Elinor 
Glyn  will  devote  to  telling  us  that  her  heroine's  skin 
"  seemed  good  to  eat,"  or  that  her  hero  had  "  fine 
lines  "  and  "  velvet  eyelids,"  will  be  devoted  by  Miss 
Corelli  to  the  description  of  the  corresponding  attri- 
butes of  her  hero  or  heroine's  soul.     Miss  Corelli, 


MISS   MARIE   CORELLI  131 

however,  is  by  no  means  obtuse  to  the  baleful  effect 
on  the  spiritual  life  exercised  by  physical  blandish- 
ments. She  will  thus  explain  the  precocious  cor- 
ruption by  senile  perversity  of  a  young  girl  in  a 
remarkable  passage  whose  stark  realism  certainly 
succeeds  in  portraying  fully  an  important  ethical  and 
physiological  truth  ■ 

"  Old  roues  smelling  of  wine  and  tobacco  were  eager  to  take  me 
on  their  knees  and  pinch  my  soft  flesh  ; — they  would  press  my 
innocent  lips  with  their  withered  ones — withered  and  contaminated 
by  the  kisses  of  cocottes  and  soiled  doves  of  the  town." 

As  showing  the  comprehensive  ultra-modernity 
of  Miss  Corelli's  outlook  on  the  sexual  question,  we 
would  refer  finally  to  her  frequent  allusions  to  "  the 
unnatural  and  strutting  embryos  of  a  new  sex  which 
will  be  neither  male  nor  female."  Though,  however, 
she  is  in  one  of  her  maxims  apparently  of  opinion 
that  "  true  beauty  is  sexless,"  we  would  infer  from 
the  following  passages  that  she  does  not  go  so  far  as 
Peladan  in  ascribing  an  important  ethical  and  socio- 
logical significance  to  this  new  type  : 

"  Men's  hearts  are  not  enthralled  or  captured  by  a  something 
appearing  to  be  neither  man  nor  woman.  And  there  are  a  great 
many  of  these  Somethings  about  just  now.  .  .  .  Beauty  remains 
intrinsically  where  it  was  first  born  and  first  admitted  into  the 
annals  of  Art  and  Literature.  Its  home  is  still  in  the  Isles  of 
Greece  where  burning  Sappho  loved  and  sang." 

Returning,  however,  from  Lesbos  to  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  let  us  make  some  brief  survey  of  Miss  Corelli's 
style.  To  condense  into  a  few  phrases  so  delicate 
and  baffling  a  phenomenon  is  difficult.  At  one  moment 
her  weighty  nouns,  guarded  not  infrequently  by  a 
triple  escort  of  epithets,  possess  the  pomp  and  luxuri- 
ance of  the  true  Asiatic  style,  at  another  the  brisk 
horsiness  of  her  diction  has  all  the  spontaneous  force 
of  English  as  it  is  actually  spoken.  At  times  such 
passages  as  "  A  moisture  as  of  tears  glistened  on  the 


132  MODERNITIES 

silky  fringe  of  his  eyelids — his  lips  quivered — he  had 
the  look  of  a  Narcissus  regretfully  bewailing  his  own 
perishable  loveliness.  On  a  swift  impulse  of  affection 
Theos  threw  one  arm  round  his  neck  in  the  fashion 
of  a  confiding  schoolboy  walking  with  his  favourite 
companion.  .  .  .  Sah-luma  looked  up  with  a  pleased 
yet  wondering  glance.  '  Thou  hast  a  silvery  and 
persuasive  tongue/  he  said  gently,"  are  reminiscent  of 
the  mellifluous  cadences  of  Dorian  Gray.  Anon  she 
will  indulge  in  a  vein  of  frank  but  militant  sim- 
plicity that  bears  a  greater  resemblance  to  the  style 
of  Mr.  Robert  Blatchford,  the  celebrated  atheist  : 

"  A  small  private  dinner-party  at  which  the  company  are  some 
six  or  eight  persons  at  most  is  sometimes  (though  not  by  any 
means  always)  quite  a  pleasant  affair  ;  but  a  '  big '  dinner  in  the 
'  big '  sense  of  the  word  is  generally  the  most  painful  and  dismal  of 
functions  except  to  those  for  whom  silent  gorging  and  after-reple- 
tion are  the  essence  of  all  mental  and  physical  joys.  I  remember 
— and  of  a  truth  it  would  be  impossible  to  forget — one  of  those 
dinners  which  took  place  one  season  at  a  very  '  swagger '  house — 
the  house  of  a  member  of  the  old  British  nobility,  whose  ancestors 
and  titles  always  excite  a  gentle  flow  of  saliva  in  the  mouths  of 
snobs." 

We  would  incidentally  mention  that  Miss  Corelli  is 
above  all  a  purist  in  her  diction,  and  that  she  has 
registered  her  emphatic  protest  against  the  use  of  the 
expression  "  Little  Mary,"  "  a  phrase  which,  although 
invented  by  Mr.  J.  M.  Barrie,  is  not  without  consider- 
able vulgarity  and  offence."  Though,  moreover,  her 
language  is  on  the  whole  essentially  English,  Miss 
Corelli  by  no  means  disdains  the  use  of  classical 
figures.  For  instance  in  the  phrase  "  after-repletion  " 
from  our  last  quotation  we  meet  an  interesting  sur- 
vival of  the  Greek  use  of  a  preposition  to  qualify  a 
noun.  The  occasional  anacoluthon  also  (or  lack  of 
orthodox  syntax)  which  is  found  in  her  works  points 
to  a  by  no  means  unprofitable  study  of  Thucydides, 


MISS   MARIE   CORELLI  133 

unless  indeed  it  is  simply  in  order  to  emphasize  her 
lack  of  any  literary  snobbery  that  our  authoress  so 
frequently  declines  to  curtsey  to  the  affected  rigidi- 
ties of  pedantic  grammar.  Her  frequent  use,  again, 
of  compound  words  such  as  "  socially-popular," 
"brilliantly-appointed,"  "Jew-spider"  betrays  the 
distinct  influence  of  the  Teutonic  idiom,  while  such  a 
phrase  as  "  braced  with  the  golden  shield  of  Courage  " 
shows  what  unique  results  can  be  obtained  by  a 
metaphor  simultaneously  fashioned  out  of  the  defen- 
sive article  of  war  of  the  ancient  Spartan  and  the  pre- 
servative article  of  attire  of  the  modern  European. 

Finally,  what  is  the  real  secret  of  Miss  Corelli's 
success  ?  It  is  that  she  is  sincere  and  that  she 
means  well.  Whether  her  invective  rises  to  the  lofty 
scorn  of  an  Isaiah,  a  Mrs.  Ormiston  Chant,  or  a 
Juvenal,  or  whether  the  smooth  current  of  her  hate 
meanders  along  with  all  the  tepid  benevolence  of  a 
grandmotherly  facetiousness,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt 
her  portentous  sincerity.  It  is  this  quality  which 
distinguishes  her  most  effectively  from  the  merely 
journalistic  authors  of  the  "big"  serials.  These 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  it  is  true,  effect  their  object 
and  succeed  in  presenting  the  outlook  on  life  of  the 
typical  man  or  woman  in  the  typical  street  or  alley. 
But  their  most  brilliant  productions  but  produce  the 
effect  of  an  intellectual  tour  de  force,  as  though 
achieved  in  despite  of  the  natural  bias  of  their 
temperaments,  by  dint  of  a  diligent  study  of  the 
well-known  Manual  of  Serialese.  Miss  Marie 
Corelli  needs  no  such  manual.  Her  Weltanschauung, 
broad,  plain,  simple,  touched  at  once  with  a  high 
consciousness  of  her  ethical  mission  and  a  ruthless 
observation  for  all  the  sins  and  follies  of  the  age,  is 
the  authentic  and  spontaneous  outcome  of  her  own 
unique  psychology. 


FRANK   WEDEKIND 

"  Alike  in  the  comedies  and  dream-plays  too 
You  see  but  a  domesticated  Zoo, 
Their  blood  so  thin  that  in  that  hot-house  air 
They  batten  on  a  vegetable  fare, 
And  revel  chronically  in  chat  and  calls, 
Sitting  like  our  friends  yonder  in  the  stalls, 
One's  stomach  of  liqueurs  will  disapprove, 
Another  wonders  if  he  really  love, 
Another  hero  starts  with  threats  to  pass 
From  this  foul  world  to  one  perhaps  more  divine, 
But  through  five  mortal  acts  behold  him  whine, 
Yet  no  kind  friend  supplies  the  coup  de  grdce. 
But  the  real  thing,  the  wild  and  beauteous  beast, 
I,  ladies,  only  I  provide  that  feast" 

These  lines,  delivered  by  a  lion-tamer  in  the  due 
professional  panoply  of  riding-coat,  top-boots,  and  a 
revolver,  are  extracted  from  the  prologue  of  Frank 
Wedekind's  tragedy,  Die  Erdgeist,  and  illustrate 
efficiently  the  bizarre  and  Mephistophelian  genius  of 
a  German  dramatist  alike  in  his  qualities  and  his 
defects  indisputably  unique.  Buccaneering  no  small 
way  in  front  of  the  very  left  wing  of  the  aesthetic 
movement,  Wedekind  is  at  once  the  bete  noire  of  the 
reactionaries  and  the  spoilt  darling  of  the  ultra- 
moderns.  To  his  enemies  he  is  a  mere  shoddy  Anti- 
Christ,  to  his  friends  a  dramatic  Messiah  leading  back 
the  inner  circles  of  the  chosen  intellects  into  the 
promised  land  of  vice  and  crime.  It  cannot  be 
denied  that  his  subject-matter  gives  considerable 
colour  to  both  these  theories.  Life,  as  seen  through 
the    medium  of   his   plays,    is   but   a  torrent  of   sex 

181 


FRANK  WEDEKIND  135 

foaming  over  the  jagged  rocks  of  crime  and  insanity. 
Take  examples  from  his  three  most  powerful  plays. 
In  Die  Erdgeist,  the  theme  of  which  is  the  baleful 
glamour  of  the  u  Evil  Woman,"  three  of  the  four 
acts  are  punctuated  with  almost  complete  regularity 
by  a  death  ;  Fruhiingserwachen,  again,  deals  with 
hoydens  and  hobbledehoys,  whose  only  occupation 
appears  to  be  the  creation,  discussion,  and  destruction 
of  life :  In  Die  Totentanz,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
scene  is  laid  in  a  "  private  hotel  "  (if  one  may  borrow 
the  highly  convenient  euphemism  of  Mr.  Shaw),  while 
a  charming  interlude  in  lyrics  is  provided  by  one  of 
the  boarders  and  a  temporary  visitor,  and  the  hero 
and  proprietor  is  a  "  marquis,"  who  psychologically 
is  much  more  closely  related  to  Hamlet  than  to  Sir 
George  Crofts.  Add  to  this  choice  of  subject-matter 
a  violently  impressionist  technique  and  a  hangman 
humour,  whose  grin  is  at  its  broadest  amid  the 
sharpest  agonies  of  the  victims,  and  one  can  form 
an  approximately  accurate  idea  of  an  author,  conceiv- 
ably somewhat  poisonous  to  anaemic  constitutions, 
but  certainly  both  piquant  and  stimulating  to  the 
hardened  and  the  adventurous.  To  arrive,  however, 
at  a  correct  appreciation  of  so  monstrous  a  phe- 
nomenon, it  will  be  advisable  to  investigate  first 
the  literary  and  social  tendencies  by  which  it  has 
been  produced,  together  with  the  character  of  the 
audience  for  whose  edification  it  disports  itself,  and 
then  by  the  light  of  such  investigations  to  proceed 
to  an  analysis  of  his  individual  works. 

For  the  ten  or  fifteen  years  following  1880,  both 
the  novel  and  the  drama  in  Germany  were  transformed 
into  a  Zolaesque  laboratory,  where  interesting  human 
experiments  were  conducted  by  skilled  operators  with 
scientific  precision.  There  were  three  chief  causes  for 
this :  firstly,  a  healthy    reaction  against  the  colour- 


136  MODERNITIES 

less  and  conventional  school  which  had  held  the  stage 
for  so   many  years,  a  school  somewhat  analogous  to 
that  of  our  own  Mid- Victorians  with  their  strong  silent 
men  and  sweet  insipid  women  ;  secondly,  a  dogmatic 
and  uncompromising  materialism   was  the  creed  of 
the  most  ambitious  and  efficient  intellects  who  found 
their  chief   mental  diet  in  Zola,  Taine,  Darwin,  and 
Haeckel ;  thirdly,  the  abstract  theory  of  the  struggle 
for   existence  had  received  an   excessively  concrete 
exemplification  in  the  Franco-German  war  and  the 
colossal  commercial  impetus  that  followed  in  the  wake 
of    a  united    Germany.     Naturalism,   however,    was 
destined  by  the  very  character  of  the  nation  to  be 
but  a  passing  phase.     Even  apart  from  the  inevitable 
swing  of  the  pendulum  and  the  powerful   Catholic 
and  religious  reaction,  whose  force  is  seen  at  a  glance 
in  the  numerical  majority  of  the  Centrum,  the  German 
temperament   is  in   its   essence   as   romantic   as  the 
French  is  logical.    The  nation,  moreover,  being  at  bot- 
tom religious,  **  the  death  of  God,"  to  use  the  classic 
phrase  of  Nietzsche,  left  a  most  crying  lacuna.     The 
philosopher  of  the  Superman  adroitly  filed  the  vacancy 
by  the  deification  of  Man.     Human  iife  became    an 
end  in  itself  embraced  with  the  most  poetic  exaltation 
and  pursued  with  all  the  zeal  of  religious  martyrdom. 
The  struggle  for  existence,ceasing  to  be  a  bare  scientific 
formula,  was  metamorphosed  into  a  classic  arena  in 
which  the   "  life-artist "   battled  for  the  crown  of  his 
Dionysiac  agonies,  finding  the  mosl  delicious  music 
in  the  perpetual  clash  of  brain  wiih  brain,  and  ex- 
periencing a  sweetness  in  the  very  bitterness  of  the 
conflict.1 

Crushed  then   by  the   force   of  these  tendencies, 
pure   realism   died.     Die  Ehre  and  Die  Weber,  it  is 

1  Cf.  the  lines  of  Ricarda  Huch  to  life  :  M  Dean  du  bist  suss  in  deinen 
Bitternessen." 


FRANK   WEDEKIND  137 

true,  still  hold  the  German  stage,  but  in  Johannes  and 
in  Die  Versunkene  Glocke  respectively  both  Sudermann 
and  Hauptmann  have  deserted  to  the  Romantic  camp, 
taking  with  them,  however,  a  good  proportion  of  the 
Realistic    equipment.       Particularly    typical    of   this 
amalgamation   of   the   two   forces  is  Hannele,  where 
the  pathological  and  mystical  explanations  are  to  be 
accepted  concurrently  and  not  as  alternatives,  as  in 
Mr.  Henry  James's  Turn  of  the  Screw.     As  was,  how- 
ever, only  natural,  there  was  a  considerable  reaction, 
and  orthodox  naturalism  was  deliberately  flouted  by 
the  Secessionsbuhne  in  1899  with  their  penchant  for 
fairy-dramas  and  their  genuinely  aesthetic  project  of 
stretching  between  the  stage  and  the  audience  a  veil 
of  transparent  gauze  intended  to  draw  the  scene  into 
a  misty  distance.     The  rankest  idealism  seemed  for 
a  time  the  order  of  the  day.     "All  that  the  young 
and    the    moderns    have    fought    against  with   such 
animosity  between  1880  and  1890,  pseudo-idealism, 
bookish  dialogue,  false  and  artificial  characterisation, 
clap-trap  stagecraft,  all  this  celebrates  in  this  drama 
a  joyous  resurrection ;   let  us  acknowledge  it;   we  have 
lost  the  battle  against  falsehood  and  stupidity,  con- 
ventionalism,   and    the    public,    lost    it    absolutely," 
writes  Julius  Hart  in  the  Tag  of  1902. 

But  the  most  interesting  direction  was  given  to 
this  neo-romanticism  by  the  aesthetic  movement  and 
Kunstschwarmerei  which  began  to  sweep  over  music, 
literature,  painting,  and  the  drama  with  an  almost 
Nietzschean  intensity.  Pure  realism  and  pure 
romanticism,  then,  both  being  extinct,  and  an  agres- 
sive  horde  of  exuberant  and  heretical  artists  being 
alive,  the  solution  for  the  artistic  problem  was  found 
in  the  aesthetic  and  romantic  treatment  of  realistic 
themes.  The  prose  of  the  human  document  became 
illuminated  with  the  poesy  of  the  human  imagination. 


138  MODERNITIES 

Realism  and  Romanticism  went  into  partnership  in 
the  freest  of  unions,  and  Wedekind  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  fruits  of  this  drastic  alliance. 

The  realistic  method  might  be  worse  than  useless 
for  aesthetic  purposes,  but  the  realistic  stock-in-trade 
was  invaluable  material  for  spirits  bursting  with  an 
almost  morbid  healthiness,  spirits  for  whom  no 
subject  was  too  terrible,  no  sensation  too  violent. 
Let  us,  however,  turn  to  the  official  pronouncement 
of  Wedekind's  preface  to  his  revised  and  expurgated 
edition  of  Die  Biichse  von  Pandora,  in  which  he  states 
his  defence  to  the  prosecution  which  the  first  edition 
of  that  interesting  book  had  brought  upon  his  martyred 
head  :  "  Wedekind  is  an  apostle  of  the  modern  move- 
ment. It  is  the  motto  of  this  movement  to  effect  a 
transvaluation  of  aesthetic  values  in  style  and  stage- 
craft. The  followers  of  this  movement  have  for 
over  fifteen  years  repudiated  the  claims  of  the  so- 
called  'aesthetic-content '  and  of  mere  formal  beauty  ; 
they  hold  it  permissible  to  depict  artistically  and 
to  represent  on  the  stage  the  ugly,  the  crude,  the 
repulsive,  and  even  the  vulgar,  provided  always  that 
such  characteristics  are  not  treated  as  ends  in  them- 
selves— that  is  to  say,  when  the  work  is  not  created 
by  love  of  the  abhorrent  for  its  own  sake  but  is 
merely  the  medium  for  the  expression  of  an  artistic 
idea.  Wedekind,  accordingly,  as  the  disciple  of 
these  authors,  chooses  to  shed  a  light  upon  the 
darkest  crannies  of  vice,  and  in  particular  to  surround 
with  a  poetic  framework  those  sexual  subjects  which 
have  been  the  peculiar  subject  of  medical  science. 
The  end  and  goal  of  his  writings  is  to  awaken  fear 
and  pity." 

Such  an  apologia  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  super- 
fluous when  one  of  the  sub-plots  of  the  play  in 
question  deals  with  the  heroic,  if  somewhat  nauseat- 


FRANK   WEDEKIND  139 

ing,  rebellion  of  a  woman  in  the  determination  of 
whose  lot  nature  has  made  a  somewhat  unfortunate 
mistake. 

Before,  however,  we  proceed  to  gaze  upon  the 
black  and  lurid  pictures  of  our  dramatic  artist,  it  is 
advisable  to  turn  very  briefly  to  the  audience  for 
whose  particular  benefit  they  exercise  their  hellish 
fascination.  Wedekind's  audience,  in  a  word,  is  the 
extreme  left  wing.  The  German  left  wing,  however, 
is  considerably  more  numerous,  more  advanced,  and 
more  dangerous  than  the  English.  Our  own  aesthetic 
movement  was  killed  almost  instantaneously  by  the 
Wilde  debacle.  We  still,  of  course,  have  our  ultra- 
modern movement,  such  as  it  is,  but  for  practical 
purposes  no  one  could  be  more  amiable  or  innocuous 
than  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  used  to  constitute 
the  highly  respectable  audiences  of  the  Court  Theatre, 
or  who  find  in  the  Stage  Society  a  mildly  audacious 
means, of  spending  their  Sabbath  evenings.  Germany, 
however,  with  its  vastly  superior  education,  and  its 
horde  of  professional  men  and  women,  schoolmasters 
and  piano-mistresses,  lawyers,  doctors,  poets,  and  litte- 
rateurs, has  the  disease  of  modernity  with  a  vengeance, 
carrying  through  each  symptom  to  its  logical  con- 
clusion with  a  violence  and  intensity  to  which  our 
own  fluttering  unconventionalism  affords  but  the 
faintest  and  most  shadowy  parallel.  Free -love, 
which,  with  the  possible  exception  of  a  certain 
ephemeral  incident  successfully  immortalised  in  three 
or  four  recent  novels,  is  in  England  little  more  than  a 
name,  the  mythical  bogey  with  which  the  halfpenny 
press  pretend  to  frighten  their  delighted  readers, 
or  is  at  best  among  the  smart  and  the  semi- 
educated  rich  the  philosophic  sanction  for  highly 
unphilosophic  impulses,  is  in  Germany  a  theoretic 
dogma  almost  as  sacred  as  that  of  woman  suffrage 


140  MODERNITIES 

and  demanding  almost  as  devout  sacrifices  on  the 
shrine  of  its  philosophic  altar.  When  again  the  subtle 
souls  of  Great  Britain  will  so  far  break  the  ice  of 
their  insular  reserve  as  to  discourse  about  the  tragedy 
of  existence,  the  far  more  heroic  spirits  of  German 
modernity  will  have  recourse  to  all  the  aesthetic  de- 
lights of  a  fine  and  artistic  suicide,  which  indeed  in 
the  most  advanced  circles  is  almost  a  fashionable 
analogue  to  our  own  appendicitis,  or  will  find  in  the 
modern  dogma  of  "living  their  own  life  "  the  substan- 
tial though  possibly  slightly  less  exhausting  equivalent 
to  our  English  hunger-strike.  How  strong  is  the  neo- 
aesthetic  movement  may  be  gauged  by  the  phenom- 
enal success  in  Berlin  of  Salome  and  Monna  Vanna, 
the  great  scenes  of  which  were  followed  avidly  by 
young  girls  with  an  enthusiasm  which  was  more  than 
aesthetic.  It  may  also  be  mentioned  incidentally  that 
Wilde's  De  Profundis  was  published  in  German  before 
it  appeared  in  England,  a  circumstance  due  quite 
as  much  to  a  keener  intellectual  enthusiasm  as  to 
superior  commercial  enterprise. 

Realising,  then,  that  while  it  is  orthodox  in 
England  to  be  ashamed  of  one's  passions  and 
emotions,  the  German  ambition  is  to  plume  oneself 
on  taking  everything  au  grand  se'rieux,  let  us  turn  to 
a  consideration  of  those  plays  in  which,  on  a  large 
canvas  and  in  big  bold  splashes  reminiscent  of  the 
not  unanalogous  methods  of  the  Secessionist  painters, 
Wedekind  is  pleased  to  present  framed  in  gigantic 
irony  : 

"  Les  immondes  chacals,  les  pantheres,  Ies  lices, 
Les  singes,  les  scorpions,  les  vautours,  les  serpents, 
Les  monstres  glapissants,  hurlants,  grognants,  rampants, 
Dans  la  menagerie  infame  de  nos  vices." 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  well  to  start  with  that  little 
masterpiece  of  a  dramatic  caricature,  Der  Kammer- 


FRANK   WEDEKIND  141 

Sanger.  A  fashionable  singer,  having  completed  his 
engagements  in  a  provincial  town,  is  snatching  at 
last  a  few  minutes'  well-earned  repose  prior  to  catch- 
ing his  train.  He  has  given  strict  orders  that  he  is 
at  home  to  no  one.  But  there  is  no  repose  for  the 
famed.  An  English  school  miss,  who  has  waited 
two  hours  in  the  rain,  smuggles  herself  into  the 
room  :  she  prattles  her  enthusiasm  with  pretty  in- 
fantile gush  :  a  few  deft  words  of  paternal  advice 
and  she  is  summarily  dismissed.  But  again  the  great 
man's  seclusion  is  desecrated  by  the  entrance  of  a 
brother  artist,  a  pathetically  grotesque  figure  of  a 
megalomaniac  failure  whose  publisher  complains  that 
he  spoils  his  one  chance  of  success  by  refusing  to 
die  and  thus  afford  an  opportunity  for  posthumous 
discovery.  But  the  genial  tolerance  of  the  illustri- 
ous one  is  considerably  harshened  when  his  colleague 
insists  on  playing  his  own  compositions  in  a  scene 
every  whit  as  racy  and  delightful  as  the  classic 
episode  in  Wycherley's  Plain  Dealer,  where  Major 
Oldfox,  having  tied  down  the  Widow  Blackacre, 
discharges  at  her  helpless  person  the  most  deadly 
poetical  fusillade.  Exit,  however,  the  composer,  after 
an  interesting  philosophic  lecture  by  his  victim  on  the 
singer's  life  and  of  the  contempt  which  as  a  practical 
man  (for  at  an  early  period  in  his  career  he  was 
"  in  carpets ")  he  has  for  his  fashionable  bourgeois 
audience  for  whom  he  is  a  mere  article  of  luxury 
as  much  in  request  as  a  motor-car  or  a  new  dress. 
Then,  as  the  climax  of  this  crescendo  of  invaders, 
enter  Helene :  a  formal  invitation  to  elope :  the 
artist,  however,  has  his  contracts  to  fulfil  and  his 
train  to  catch,  and  the  favour  is  declined  with  thanks  : 
tears  and  threats  of  suicide :  he  endeavours  to  pacify 
her,  and  she  promises  to  be  good :  he  will  miss  his 
train  if  he  is  not  quick.    The  romantic  woman,  how- 


142  MODERNITIES 

ever,  unable  to  bear  the  final  parting,  shoots  herself 
on  the  spot.  The  remorseful  lover  follows  her 
example  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  He  is  politely  regretful 
for  the  contretemps,  but  after  all  business  is  business, 
and  he  must  catch  his  train.  It  is  impossible  with- 
out copious  quotations  to  give  a  full  idea  of  the 
piquant  irony  with  which  the  comedy  is  salted  ;  the 
truth  and  reality  of  the  theme  stand  out  all  the  more 
brilliant  from  their  garb  of  romantic  travesty,  while 
the  superb  impudence  of  utilising  death  as  an  essen- 
tially comic  climax  is  without  parallel  in  European 
literature. 

Let  us,  however,  now  turn  from  light  comedy  to 
serious  tragedy  in  the  shape  of  Der  Totentanz.  The 
scene,  as  already  mentioned,  is  laid  in  a  i(  private 
hotel."  Where  Shaw,  however,  sees  but  the  problem, 
Wedekind  has  only  eyes  for  the  poetry.  To  Shaw 
the  irony  is  a  weapon,  to  Wedekind  an  end  in  itself. 
Elfrida,  a  young  lady  in  Reformkleid,  one  of  the  most 
militant  members  of  a  suppression  society,  interviews 
the  proprietor,  the  Marquis  Casti  Piani,  on  the  subject 
of  a  former  maid  of  hers,  for  whom  she  has  been 
searching  for  some  years.  The  girl  is  identified,  and 
the  whole  question  philosophically  discussed.  The 
proprietor,  moreover,  who  is  an  extremely  well-dressed 
gentleman  with  a  first-class  education,  polished 
manners,  and  all  the  introspective  subtlety  of  the 
most  modern  of  decadents,  neatly  turns  the  tables  by 
announcing  that  the  real  impetus  which  made  the  girl 
change  her  calling  was  the  "  suppression  literature  " 
which  the  puritanical  young  woman  had  with  un- 
pardonable carelessness  left  lying  about.  The  ice 
being  thus  broken,  he  proceeds  in  his  capacity  of 
sexual  expert  to  diagnose  the  respective  psychologies 
of  his  tete-a-tete  and  himself.  Why,  they  are  both 
tarred  with  the   same  brush.     If  he,  the  trafficker, 


FRANK    WEDEKIND  143 

pursues  his  unpopular  vocation  even  more  as  a  matter 
of  sexual  mania  than  of  commercial  enterprise,  so 
does  she,  the  philanthropist,  ply  her  good  work  out 
of  an  equally  morbid  craving  to  move  in  a  congenial 
atmosphere.  Are  they  not  both  but  the  obverse  and 
reverse  of  the  same  medal  ?  Paradoxical  and  super- 
Shavian  dissertations  on  the  theory  of  woman  are 
then  followed  by  blandishments  and  caresses,  in  re- 
spect of  which  with  a  marvellous  genius  for  brutality 
he  chaffs  her  on  the  crudity  and  inexperience  of  her 
technique.  Then  comes  the  most  outre  scene  of  the 
play  when  Casti  Piani  and  Elfrida  watch  from  behind 
a  screen  the  courtship  of  Lisiska,  the  missing  servant- 
girl,  by  a  young  man  in  a  check  knickerbocker  suit ; 
the  bizarre  paradox  is  but  accentuated  by  the  swing 
and  beauty  Of  the  lyrics  in  which  this  wooing  is  con- 
ducted, and  the  distorted  idealism  of  the  girl,  who, 
as  the  martyr-priestess  of  the  j'oie  de  vivre,  is  almost 
genuinely  convinced  of  the  sanctity  of  her  mission. 
The  interlude  over,  the  audience  come  from  behind 
the  curtain.  Stung  to  the  wildest  pitch  of  emulation, 
the  extreme  limit  of  self-sacrificing  ecstasy,  the  neurotic 
woman  completes  the  cycle  of  her  psychic  revolution 
by  the  supplication,  "  Verkaufen  Sie  mich."  The 
marquis,  who  has  thus  succeeded  beyond  his  most 
sanguine  expectations,  in  a  fit  of  nervous  revulsion 
shoots  himself  before  the  girl's  eyes.  Three  of  the 
inmates  rush  from  three  distinct  doors,  and  the  over- 
civilised  satyr  expires  with  their  kisses  on  his  lips, 
kisses  savoured  and  criticised  with  all  the  frenzy  of 
the  moribund  connoisseur — *  Kflsse  mich — nein,  das 
war  nicht — Kiisse — kusse  mich  anders." 

It  is  impossible  to  express  more  cogently  the  whole 
tragedy  of  the  dying  sensualist. 

No  normal  Englishman  can  be  expected  to  enjoy 
such  a  play  ;  in  justice,  however,  to  the  author,  this 


144  MODERNITIES 

freny  is  aesthetic  as  well  as  sexual.  New  worlds,  in 
fact,  have  been  needed  to  regale  the  insatiate  appe- 
tites of  the  dramatist  and  his  hearers  ;  "  Heaven  has 
been  blown  to  pieces  by  the  artillery  of  science ; 
earth  is  cold,  stale  and  unpalatable  ;  perforce  let  us 
batten  on  the  fires  of  hell,"  would  run  his  motto. 
As  Baudelaire  in  verse,  and  Beardsley  in  painting, 
found  their  theme  in  the  vicious  and  the  abhorrent, 
so  does  Wedekind  in  the  drama.  As  an  ordinary 
play,  Der  Totentanz  falls  outside  judgment ;  as  a  sheer 
literary  curiosity,  a  dramatic  fantasia  on  the  sex- 
motif,  a  deliberate  essay  in  the  art  of  the  ironical  and 
the  brutal,  the  piece  achieves  its  own  and  peculiar 
ambition. 

Diejunge  Welt,  on  the  other  hand,  flows  in  a  current 
which,  in  spite  of  the  eventual  madness  of  the  princi- 
pal male  character,  is  limpid  and  playful  by  com- 
parison with  thePhlegethontian  course  of  the  Totentanz. 
The  theme  of  the  comedy  is  the  woman  movement. 
In  the  prologue,  one  of  his  most  aery  and  delicious 
pieces  of  work,  Wedekind  shows  us  a  bevy  of  school- 
girls at  lessons,  chattering,  fooling,  and  "ragging" 
their  master  with  the  most  delightful  naivete.  They 
have  a  pretty  taste  in  literature,  forsooth,  reading 
surreptitious  copies  of  The  Arabian  Nights,  talking 
gravely  of  Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche,  and  quoting 
with  the  prettiest  of  pedantry  Schiller,  Goethe,  and 
even  Ovid.  No  mere  prattlers,  however.  Glorying 
in  their  grievance,  they  found  a  league,  the  solemn 
oath  of  whose  members  is  never  to  marry  until  the 
most  glaring  outrages  in  the  education  of  the  young 
are  remedied.  Towards  the  end  of  the  scene  some 
youthful  figures  of  the  opposite  sex  enter.  How  long 
will  the  league  last  ? 

Then  we  come  to  the  actual  play  where  the  sacred 
circle  has  been  already  cut  by  a  marriage  of  one  of 


FRANK   WEDEKIND  145 

the  members.  The  whole  comedy,  in  fact,  shows 
how  irresistibly  the  Life  Force  claims  its  own.  The 
brisk  racy  dialogue  and  the  satiric  character  drawing 
of  the  ultra-moderns  are  equally  delicious.  Particu- 
larly charming  are  Anna,  masking  the  temperament 
of  her  Shavian  namesake  beneath  the  pose  of  the 
new  woman  ;  Karl,  the  picturesque  scamp,  who  has 
married  a  seamstress  on  abstract  socialistic  principles  ; 
and  Meyer,  the  modern  poet,  who,  when  his  fiancee 
presents  herself  to  recite  a  poem  which  he  has  written, 
in  the  most  faithful  of  Cupid  costumes,  is  most 
righteously  indignant  because — the  dress  fails  to 
harmonise  with  the  subtle  spirit  of  his  masterpiece. 

A  masterly  little  piece  of  irony,  again,  is  the  cele- 
brated stage-direction,  when,  at  the  climax  of  an 
intense  passage,  a  baby  squalls,  and  is  carried  off  the 
stage  by  its  mother,  to  the  accompaniment  of  music. 
Perhaps,  however,  the  deftest  touch  of  satire  is  the 
analysis  of  the  decline  of  the  detraque  litterateur, 
accustomed  to  transcribe  each  kiss  fresh  from  the 
lips  of  his  beloved  into  his  artistic  note-book. — 
"  When  I  made  my  psychological  studies  on  Anna, 
then  Anna  becomes  unnatural — on  some  other  speci- 
men—  she  became  jealous  —  there  was  no  other 
alternative  but  to  make  them  on  myself." 

Wedekind's  dramatic  masterpieces,  however,  are 
Die  Erdgeist  and  Fruhlingserwachen,  which  merit,  con- 
sequently, a  somewhat  more  detailed  analysis.  Die 
Erdgeist,  as  has  been  already  remarked,  deals  with  the 
theme  of  the  modern  Lilith,  not  from  the  point  of  view 
of  orthodox  dramatic  technique  like  Mr.  Pinero,  not 
scientifically  like  Zola,  but  aesthetically.  No  show 
of  esoteric  detail,  no  orthodox  denouement;  simply 
atmosphere.  The  play,  together  with  its  sequel,  Die 
Biichse  von  Pandora,  constitutes  the  epic  of  the  courte- 
san.    In  the  first  act,  Schwarz,  a  painter,  is  at  work 

K 


146  MODERNITIES 

on  the  portrait,  in  pierrot  costume,  of  the  wife  of  a  Dr. 
Goll,  a  lady  rejoicing  in  the  various  Christian  names 
of  Nellie,  Eva,  and  Lulu.  A  middle-aged  journalist, 
named  Schon,  who  is  in  the  studio,  is  on  old  and 
friendly  terms  with  Frau  Goll.  The  fact  that  female 
beauty  is  the  raison  cCetre  of  the  creature's  existence 
is  soon  made  apparent  by  the  following  dialogue  : 

Lulu.  Here  I  am. 

Schon.   Splendid. 

Lulu.  Well? 

Schon.  You  put  the  wildest  imagination  to  the  blush. 

LULU.    Do  you  find  me  nice? 

Schon.   You're  a  picture  that  makes  artists  despair. 

The  pompous  conventionalism  of  the  doctor  is 
seen  almost  immediately,  when  he  suggests  with 
heavy  gravity  that  she  is  not  wearing  her  costume 
with  sufficient  reserve.  The  artist  proceeds  to  work, 
and  the  mere  mechanism  of  posing  brings  out  at 
once  the  sheer  sexuality  of  the  animal  which  he  is 
painting.  Goll  is  carried  off  by  Schon,  and  the 
artist  and  the  pierrot  are  left  alone.  The  young 
painter  proves  more  attractive  than  the  old  professor, 
who  arrives  towards  the  climax  of  a  wild  scene.  In 
the  scuffle,  Goll  is  killed.  Death,  however,  is  a  pet 
theme  of  Wedekind,  who  proceeds  to  batten  thereon 
with  abnormal  gusto. 

Schwarz.   The  doctor  is  bound  to  be  here  in  a  minute. 

LULU.    Doctoring  won't  help  him. 

Schwarz.   Still,  in  a  case  like  this,  one  does  what  one  can. 

Lulu.   He  doesn't  believe  in  doctors. 

Schwarz.  Won't  you,  at  any  rate,  change  ? 

Lulu.  Yes,  at  once. 

Schwarz.   Why  are  you  waiting  ? 

Lulu.  I  say — 

Schwarz.  What? 

Lulu.   Please  close  his  eyes. 

Schwarz.  They  are  awful. 

Lulu.    Nothing  like  as  awful  as  you. 


FRANK   WEDEKIND  147 

SCHWARZ.    As  I  ? 

LULU.   You're  a  depraved  character. 
Schwarz.    Doesn't  all  this  affect  you  ? 
Lulu.  Yes,  I  too  am  as  well  moved. 
Schwarz.  Then  1  ask  you  not  to  say  anything. 
LULU.  You  are  moved  as  well. 

Shocked  by  her  comparative  callousness,  Schwarz 
subjects  her  to  a  catechism — does  she  believe  in  a 
Creator,  a  soul,  or  anything — only  to  find  himself 
beating  against  an  eternal  u  I  don't  know." 

So  ends  the  first  act,  and  this  creature,  whose  hair 
is  a  net  of  murder,  whose  lips  are  poisoned  fruit,  and 
whose  eyes  are  pits  of  hell,  has  already  one  death  to 
her  credit. 

The  second  act  discloses  Schwarz  married  to  Lulu, 
and  in  the  heyday  of  artistic  fame  and  fortune.  A 
fleeting  light  is  cast  on  the  swamp,  from  which 
the  fiend  has  emerged,  by  the  entry  and  departure 
of  Schigolch,  her  old  ragamuffin  of  a  sire.  Then 
follows  a  tete-a-tete  between  Lulu  and  Schon.  Com- 
bining, as  she  does,  the  soul  of  an  Ibsen  woman  with 
the  body  of  a  Phryne,  she  complains  of  her  husband's 
obtusity  :  **  He  is  not  a  child — he  is  commonplace — 
he  has  no  education — he  realises  nothing — he  realises 
neither  me  nor  himself — he  is  blind,  blind — he  doesn't 
know  me,  but  he  loves  me  ;  that  is  an  unbridgeable 
gulf."  The  painter  returns,  and  is  given  by  Schon 
the  outlines  of  his  wife's  past.  Schon  had  picked 
her  out  of  the  gutter  at  the  age  of  twelve,  and  had 
had  her  educated  ;  her  antecedents  were  ghastly  ; 
after  the  death  of  Schon's  wife,  Lulu  wished  to  marry 
him  ;  to  obviate  that,  he  made  her  marry  Dr.  Goll 
with  his  half  a  million.  Lulu  is  anxious  to  be  good, 
but  must  be  taken  seriously.  The  painter  then 
commits  suicide,  and  the  author  feasts  again  on  the 
carnage  in  a  scene  which,  for  sheer  horror,  challenges 
even  Macbeth, 


148  MODERNITIES 

"  After  you,"  says  Lulu,  after  they  have  heard  the 
body  fall,  and  Schon  has  opened  the  door. 

Schon.  There's  the  end  of  my  engagement.     Ten  minutes  ago 
he  lay  here.1 

Schon.  That  is  your  husband's  blood. 

Lulu.   It  leaves  no  stain. 

Schon.   Monster! 

LULU.   Of  course  you  will  marry  me. 

Then,  by  way  of  a  really  strong  curtain,  they  send 
for  a  reporter,  and  dictate  the  official  version  of  the 
thrilling  story.  The  third  act  is  the  dressing-room 
of  Lulu  ;  she  has  gone  on  the  music-hall  stage  as  a 
barefoot  dancer  of  classical  measure  ;  Schon,  having 
temporarily  freed  himself  from  the  spell,  is  about  to 
marry  a  charming,  "  innocent  child,"  whom  he  has 
brought  to  witness  the  spectacle.  The  insult  stimu- 
lates the  girl  to  a  supernormal  fascination.  Having 
refused  the  proposals  of  a  prince,  she  deliberately  sets 
herself  to  cast  her  wand  over  the  journalist.  She 
mocks  him  brazenly,  with  her  magic  potency  over  him, 
in  a  scene  of  the  most  subtle  cruelty. 

Schon.   Don't  look  at  me  so  shamelessly. 
Lulu.   No  one  is  keeping  you  here. 

The  Circaean  witchery  is  complete,  and  the  man, 
transformed,  writes,  at  the  dictation  of  the  enchantress, 
a  letter  breaking  off  his  engagement. 

In  the  fourth  act,  nemesis  is  at  hand.  His  marriage 
with  Lulu  shatters  the  constitution  of  the  aging 
journalist,  who  falls  a  victim  to  persecution-mania. 
Lulu,  though  genuinely  in  love  with  him,  surrenders 
herself  almost  mechanically  to  the  kisses  of  his  son. 
The  journalist  can  stand  no  more — such  a  creature  is 
not  fit  to  live — she  must  commit  suicide  with  the 
revolver  which  he  produces.     Simply  as  a  matter  of 

1  It  is  curious  to  notice  that  almost  identical  words  were  used  in  Irene 
Wycherley. 


FRANK   WEDEKIND  149 

self-preservation,  she  turns  the  weapon  against  the 
man  himself.  Then  ensues  the  most  devilish  scene 
of  all.  Fearing  the  prison-cage,  the  brute  turns  for 
help  to  the  child  of  its  prey :  "  I  shot  him  because 
he  wanted  to  shoot  me.  I  loved  no  man  in  the  world 
like  I  did  him.  Aiwa,  demand  what  you  will.  Look 
at  me,  Aiwa  ;  look  at  me,  man,  look  at  me." 

Those  anxious  for  the  further  history  of  Lulu  should 
turn  to  the  livid  pages  of  Die  Biichse  von  Pandora. 
There,  in  flaming  characters,  they  will  read  of  her 
imprisonment,  of  how,  being  deprived  of  a  mirror, 
she  at  last  found  relief  by  seeing  her  reflection  in  a 
new  spoon,  of  her  rescue  therefrom  by  her  inamorata, 
the  Countess  Geschwitz,  and  of  her  flight  to  Paris 
with  Aiwa  Schon  ;  they  will  read  of  her  life  there 
among  souteneurs,  blackmailers,  and  millionaires,  of 
her  migration  from  Paris  to  London,  of  her  degrada- 
tion to  the  streets,  and  her  final  assassination  at  the 
hands  of  Jack  the  Ripper. 

Wedekind,  who  to  the  metier  of  the  artist  joins 
that  of  the  enfant  terrible,  strains  in  this  play  every 
nerve  to  shock.  As  the  susceptibilities  of  the  left 
wing  of  most  of  the  English  intellects  are  about  on 
a  par  with  those  of  the  right  wing  of  the  German 
aesthetic  movement,  from  our  own  point  of  view  he 
more  than  overshoots  the  mark.  None  the  less,  the 
English  reader,  though  stifled  amid  the  fumes  of  the 
monstrous  debauch,  is  forced  to  admire  here  and 
there  passages  of  a  potency  truly  infernal.  The  final 
scene  in  the  wet  and  noisome  garret  is  indisputably 
tragic,  when  the  squalid  thing  gazes  at  Schwarz's 
pierrot  picture  of  her  dead  beauty,  only  to  throw  it 
in  revulsion  out  of  the  window,  or  where  Aiwa  and 
Schigolch  analyse  the  melancholy  past. 

Alwa.  She  should  have  been  a  Catherine  of  Russia. 
Schigolch.  That  beast ! 


150  MODERNITIES 

ALWA.  Although  her  development  was  precocious,  she  once  had 
the,  expression  of  a  gay  and  healthy  child  of  five  years  old.  She 
was  then  only  three  years  younger  than  I.  In  spite  of  her 
marvellous  superiority  to  me  in  practical  matters,  she  let  me 
explain  to  her  the  meaning  of  Tristan  and  Isolde,  and  how 
fascinating  she  was  when  I  read  it  to  her  and  she  grasped  its 
meaning.  From  the  little  sister  that  felt  herself  like  a  schoolgirl 
in  her  first  marriage,  she  became  the  wife  of  an  unfortunate  and 
hysterical  artist ;  from  being  the  wife  of  the  artist,  she  became 
the  wife  of  my  late  father  ;  from  being  the  wife  of  my  father,  she 
became  my  mistress  ;  so  flows  the  stream  of  the  world.  Who  can 
swim  against  it  ? 

So  ends  a  play  not  without  some  resemblance  to 
Hogarth's  Harlot's  Progress,  if  one  can  imagine  the  fan- 
atical moralist  treating  such  a  subject  with  the  artistic 
irony  of  a  very  much  Germanised  Aubrey  Beardsley. 

But  Wedekind's  most  serious  contribution  to  dra- 
matic literature  is  to  be  found  in  Friihlingserwachen. 
The  orthodox  stage-conventions,  it  is  true,  are  sweep- 
ingly  ignored  ;  the  scene  is  changed  with  more  than 
Shakespearean  frequency  ;  the  characters  indulge  in 
prolonged  romantic  soliloquies  ;  none  the  less,  the 
night  of  genuine  tragedy  broods  over  the  whole  piece. 

The  first  act  opens  with  a  conversation  between 
Frau  Bergman  and  her  daughter  Wendla.  The  girl 
is  growing  up,  fit  to  wear  longer  dresses,  and  exhibit- 
ing the  morbidity  appropriate  to  her  years.  In  the 
next  scene  we  see  schoolboys  at  talk ;  with  intense 
gravity  they  travel  from  their  work  to  religion,  and 
from  religion  to  sex,  discussing  the  Platonic  and 
American  systems  of  education,  remarking  that 
Superstition  is  the  Charybdis  into  which  one  flies 
out  of  the  Scylla  of  religious  mania,  or  comparing 
notes  on  the  growth  of  their  respective  manhoods. 
Melchior,  the  leading  spirit  of  the  knot,  promises 
to  provide  his  less  experienced  friend,  Moritz,  with 
a  written  synopsis  of  the  mechanism  of  life.  In 
the  third  scene,  we  get  the  other  side  of  the  medal, 


FRANK    WEDEKIND  151 

when  a  bevy  of  girls  discuss  life.  How  shall  we 
dress  our  children  ?  Which  is  it  better  to  be — a  girl, 
or  a  man  ?  Then,  again,  the  scene  is  filled  with 
schoolboys,  and  we  see  the  academic  enthusiasm  of 
young  Germany. 

u  I've  got  my  move,"  cried  Melchior.  *  I've  got 
my  move — now  the  world  can  go  to  pot — if  I 
hadn't  got  my  move,  I'd  have  shot  myself."  A 
British  youth  with  his  cricket  or  football  "  colours  " 
fresh  on  his  victorious  head  could  not  possibly  have 
manifested  a  more  sacred  joy,  and  one  thinks  in- 
cidentally of  the  Viennese  student  who  shot  the 
professor  who  had  ploughed  him  in  his  viva  voce. 

Scene  V,  after  a  short  philosophic  exposition  by 
Melchior  of  the  universality  of  egoism,  contains  an 
episode  between  himself  and  Wendla,  when  at  her 
own  request  he  hits  and  beats  her,  so  that,  forsooth, 
she  may  realise  the  sufferings  of  a  friend  of  hers 
similarly  handled  by  her  parents.  After  we  have 
paid  a  visit  to  Melchior's  study,  where  Melchior  and 
Moritz  are  reading  Faust  together,  we  are  transported 
once  again  to  the  house  of  Wendla  and  her  mother. 
This  scene  is  the  most  pathetic  in  the  first  act.  The 
old  fairy  tales  about  the  stork  cease  to  obtain 
credence,  but  the  birthright  of  knowledge  claimed 
by  the  child  is  refused  by  the  mother. 

"Why  can't  you  tell  me,  Mother  dear — see,  I  kneel  at  your 
feet  and  lay  my  head  upon  your  lap — you  put  your  skirt  over  my 
head  and  tell  me,  and  tell  me  as  if  you  were  alone  in  the  room. 
I  promise  not  to  move — I  promise  not  to  shriek." 

Could  the  dim  forebodings  of  innocence,  the  harrow- 
ing consciousness  of  mystery,  be  more  poignantly 
delineated  ? 

In  the  third  act,  events  move  apace.  A  poetic 
nemesis  befalls  the  prudish  mother,  for  the  child 
surrenders  all  unwitting  to  the  ardour  of  Melchior. 


152  MODERNITIES 

Spring  has  indeed  awakened.  Moritz,  however,  has 
been  unsuccessful  at  school ;  he  wanders  into  the 
forest  to  make  the  end.  Four  pages  of  soliloquy  ; 
a  dramatic  device,  no  doubt,  but  none  the  less 
indicative  of  the  exaggerated  introspective  pedantry 
of  the  average  German  schoolboy.  u  I  wander  to  the 
altar  like  the  youth  in  old  Etruria,  whose  death-rattle 
purchased  deliverance  for  his  brothers  in  the  coming 
year."  Then,  when  his  thoughts  are  at  their  darkest, 
a  pretty  little  artist's  model  comes  tripping  along 
barefoot  ;  gay  and  sparkling  is  her  careless  life. 
"  Come  home  with  me."  But  the  schoolboy  has  his 
lessons  to  do,  and  he  hies  himself  to  his  final  task. 
Act  III. — Apprehensive  of  a  suicide  epidemic,  the 
masters  hold  a  meeting  in  which  the  question  of 
whether  the  window  shall  be  open  or  shut  is  appar- 
ently of  as  much  importance  as  the  expulsion  of 
Melchior.  Then  comes  the  funeral  of  Moritz  ;  the 
father  repudiates  the  paternity  of  so  prodigal  a  son, 
while  the  classical  professor  sapiently  remarks,  u  If 
he  had  only  learnt  his  history  of  Greek  literature, 
he  would  have  had  no  occasion  to  hang  himself." 
Melchior,  however,  is  still  at  large,  and  after  a 
harrowing  dialogue  between  his  father  and  mother, 
is  packed  off  to  a  reformatory. 

But  the  transformation  scene  goes  merrily  on,  and 
we  behold  first  the  reformatory,  from  which  Melchior 
effects  an  escape,  and  then  Wendla's  sick-room.  Amid 
the  most  trenchant  satire  on  the  pompous  fashionable 
doctor,  it  becomes  apparent  that  the  child  has  brought 
home  to  her  mother  the  full  wages  of  innocence. 

Frau  Bergmann.  You  have  a  child. 

Wendla.  But  that  is  not  possible,  Mother.    I  am  not  married. 
Oh,  Mother,  why  did  you  not  tell  me  everything  ? 

The  finale  of  the  play  is  laid  in  the  churchyard, 
over  whose  wall  there  clambers  the  escaped  Melchior  ; 


FRANK   WEDEKIND  153 

he  walks  past  the  tombstone  of  Wendla,  dead  from 
her  mother's  heroic  efforts  to  save  her  reputation  ; 
after  an  interview  with  Moritz,  out  for  a  nocturnal 
stroll,  with  his  head  tucked  under  his  arm,  he  meets 
a  mysterious  stranger,  who  launches  him  in  the  world. 
Such  is  a  synopsis  of  a  play  produced  in  Germany 
amid  the  wildest  acclamation  and  disparagement.  Its 
success  is  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  it  is  pregnant 
with  a  problem  which,  in  Germany,  at  any  rate,  is  of 
peculiar  moment.  "  Is  such  a  subject  capable  of 
artistic  treatment  ? "  demands  the  man  of  the  old 
school.  If,  however,  the  treatment  is  somewhat  more 
drastic  than  in  Longfellow's 

*  Standing  with  reluctant  feet 
Where  the  brook  and  river  meet," 

the  subject  is  the  same,  the  reason  for  the  difference 
being  that  German  blood  flows  with  a  swifter  current 
and  a  fuller  volume  than  the  thin  New  England  trickle 
of  the  early  nineteenth  century.  As  a  sheer  piece  of 
psychology,  the  work  is  as  great  as  James's  The  Awk- 
ward Age,  if  one  may  compare  a  Vulcanic  forge  with 
a  Daedalean  web.  That,  indeed,  the  theme  is  unfit 
for  tragic  treatment,  let  those  maintain  whose  ideally 
balanced  temperaments  have  never  experienced  the 
throes  and  travails  that  attend  the  birth  of  manhood 
or  womanhood. 

Some  reference  should  be  made  to  Wedekind's  less 
important  works — to  the  somewhat  inferior  farce,  Der 
Liebestrank;  to  the  highly  serious  So  istdas  Leben,  a  work 
whose  psychology  and  symbolism  are  analogous  to 
Ibsen's  Volksfiend ;  to  the  amusing,  but  not  particularly 
significant  Marquis  von  Keith,  with  its  mixture  of  the 
problem,  the  extravaganza,  and  the  character  study, 
and  its  delightful  comedy  passage,  when  a  boy  wins 
his  way  with  his  father  by  blackmailing  him  with 
suicide  ;  to  Minnehaha,  the  prose-poem,  compounded 


154  MODERNITIES 

of  the  spirits  of  the  classics  and  the  coulisses  ;  to 
the  satiric  grotesque,  Oaha,  an  elaborate  skit  on  the 
celebrated  Munich  journal  with  its  chronic  confis- 
cations by  the  police  and  its  special  u  prison-editor  "  ; 
and  to  Hidalla,  that  rollicking  burlesque  tragedy  of 
Free  Love  and  Eugenics.  On  a  higher  plane,  however, 
are  the  volume  of  short  stories,  Feuerwerk,  and  the 
collection  of  poems  entitled  Die  Vier  Jahrzeiten.  Like 
Guy  de  Maupassant,  Wedekind  treats  only  the  one 
subject.  His  technique,  however,  is  different,  and  while 
the  Frenchman  crowns  each  tale  with  a  climax,  the 
German  clothes  it  with  an  atmosphere.  Feuerwerk, 
moreover,  is  worth  reading,  if  only  for  the  style,  with 
its  noble  simplicity  and  its  majestic  roll.  The  master- 
piece of  the  series  is  Der  Greise  Freier,  where,  set  in 
the  background  of  an  Italian  honeymoon,  lies  painted 
the  grey  romance  of  a  young  girl  realising  her  love 
in  the  very  arms  of  death.  Matchless,  again,  as  a 
mock  heroic  tour  de  force  is  Rabbi  von  Ezra,  a  philo- 
sophic sermon  by  an  aged  Hebrew,  delivered  in  the 
grandiose  style  of  the  prophets,  on  his  comparative 
experiences  with  the  wife  of  his  bosom  and  the  strange 
woman.  The  poems,  also,  are,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
innumerable  variations  of  the  eternal  theme.  With 
all  its  fantastic  bizarrerie,  reminiscent  of  Baudelaire, 
Poe,  or  Verlaine,  the  mood  is  throughout  more  mascu- 
line, not  to  say  more  brutal.  No  lover  has  yet  set  his 
enamoured  features  to  a  grin  of  such  tigerish  ferocity  ; 
no  writer  of  songs  has  yet  refined  melodious  lyrics 
with  such  Nietzschean  gusto,  such  Satanic  exultation. 
Keuscheit,  in  particular,  is  truly  the  apotheosis  of  the 
super-brutal.  In  a  more  normal  vein,  making  quite 
a  new  departure  in  the  art  of  light  verse,  is  the  charm- 
ing poem  beginning  : 

"  Ich  habe  meine  Tante  geschlachtet, 
Meine  Tante  war  alt  und  schwach." 


FRANK    WEDEKIND  155 

Of  course  it  is  inevitable  that,  like  the  Secessionist 
painters,  seeking,  as  he  does,  such  drastic  effects  by 
such  drastic  means,  when  he  falls,  he  should  fall 
with  overwhelming  heaviness.  Occasionally,  instead 
of  being  powerful,  he  is  merely  ©rude.  At  his  best, 
however,  his  poems  exhibit  the  swing  and  ripple 
of  the  authentic  lyric.  Typical  of  him  at  his  best 
are  Heimweh  and  Der  Blinde  Knabe.  Yet  now  and 
again  the  cry  of  the  sufferer  pierces  the  cynic's  mask. 

"  Ich  stehe  schuldlos  vor  meinem  Verstand, 
Und  fuhle  des  Schicksals  zermalmende  Hand." 

Among  Wedekind's  more  recent  works  we  would 
mention  Zensur  and  Schloss  von  Wetterstein  and,  far 
more  particularly,  Musik  and  Franziska. 

Zensur,  with  its  sub-title  a  Theodicy,  is  an  apologia 
pro  vita  sua,  arising  more  particularly  out  of  the  fact 
that  the  play,  Die  Biichse  von  Pandora,  was  actually 
censored  even  in  Munich.  The  protagonist  of  this 
work,  Walter  Butidan,  is  without  disguise  Frank 
Wedekind,  for  the  postulate  of  the  Wedekindian 
personality,  as  a  fundamental  element  in  contempo- 
rary national  culture,  is  as  important  in  Germany  as 
was  some  years  ago  the  postulate  of  the  Shavian 
personality  in  England.  And,  indeed,  with  all  his 
clownings  and  buffooneries,  Wedekind  is  frequently 
as  serious  as  Mr.  Shaw  himself.  It  will  therefore 
be  appreciated  that  the  passage  which  we  are  now 
going  to  quote  out  of  the  dialogue  between  Buridan 
and  the  Court  official  is  meant  deliberately,  not  as 
a  mere  piece  of  impudence  but  in  all  earnestness. 

Buridan.  But  can  you  adduce  anything  out  of  my  writings 
which  hasn't  for  its  ultimate  object  to  glorify  and  represent  artis- 
tically that  eternal  justice  before  which  we  all  bend  the  knee  with 
all  humility  ? 

Dr.  Prantl.  What  do  you  mean  by  eternal  justice  ? 

Buridan.  I  understand  by  eternal  justice  the  same  thing  as 


156  MODERNITIES 

that  which  John  the  Evangelist  called  the  Logos.  I  understand 
by  it  the  same  thing  as  that  which  the  whole  of  Christendom 
worships  as  the  Holy  Ghost.  In  no  one  of  my  works  have  I  put 
forward  the  good  as  bad  or  the  bad  as  good.  I  have  never  falsi- 
fied the  consequences  which  accrue  to  a  man  as  the  result  of  his 
actions.  I  have  simply  portrayed  those  consequences  in  all  their 
inexorable  necessity. 

In  a  somewhat  different  vein  is  the  weird  trilogy, 
In  Allen  Satteln  Gerecht  {Ready  for  Everything),  Mit 
Allen  Hiiden  Gehetzt  {Up  to  Everything),  and  In  Allen 
Wassern  Gewaschen,  which  have  been  recently  pub- 
lished together,  under  the  title  of  Schloss  von  Wetterstein. 
In  these  three  plays  the  lascivious  and  the  intellectual, 
the  monstrous  and  the  real,  the  comic  and  the  tragic, 
are  linked  together  in  a  union  which,  though  to 
some  extent  burlesque,  is  on  the  whole  successful. 
The  dialogue,  in  particular,  in  this  hybrid  of  tragedy 
and  extravaganza,  with  its  ingenious  twists,  its  lusty 
thwackings,  its  shrewd,  violent  thrusts,  not  merely 
home,  but,  as  it  were,  right  through  the  body,  is  in 
its  own  way  packed  with  genius.  Erne,  in  particular, 
with  her  insatiable  appetite  in  the  erotic  sphere,  is 
the  greatest  enfant  terrible  in  the  whole  of  modern 
European  literature.  And  truly  tragic  is  her  dismay 
when  she  discovers  that  that  Unersatllichkeit  in  Liebe, 
on  which  she  has  built  her  whole  philosophy  of 
life,  is  simply  to  be  attributed  to  chronic  indigestion, 
and  that  the  instantaneous  effect  which  she  produces 
upon  males  is  simply  due  to  a  diseased  liver. 

More  serious,  though  with  the  usual  Wedekindian 
sardonic  undercurrent,  is  Musik.  This  play  consists 
of  four  u  pictures  from  the  life  of  a  young  singing 
student,  Klara  Hiihnerwadel,  studying  her  art  in  the 
household  of  a  professor  who  is  married  to  another 
woman.  Events  take  their  normal  course,  but  there 
is  a  great  uproar  owing  to  the  arrest  and  trial  of 
the  woman,  through  whose  illegal   assistance   Klara 


FRANK   WEDEKIND  157 

had  successfully  escaped  the  natural  corollary  of 
her  rash  romanticism.  Klara  is  consequently  packed 
off  across  the  frontier  to  avoid  arrest  herself.  She 
returns,  however,  is  duly  arrested,  and  the  second 
"picture"  shows  her  in  prison.  In  the  third  "  picture," 
she  is  once  more  back  at  the  professor's  house,  and 
once  more  does  history  repeat  itself,  though  in  this 
case  the  legal  ordinances  are  not  infringed.  In  the 
fourth  "picture,"  Klara  has  given  birth  to  a  son, 
of  whom  she  is  devotedly  fond.  With  true  Wede- 
kindian  irony,  however,  the  child  dies  on  the  stage. 
Such  is  the  skeleton  of  the  plot,  squalid,  though 
no  doubt  highly  plausible.  But  the  play  must  be 
read  itself  to  appreciate  the  sheer  force  of  its  sinister 
realism.  The  characters  in  this  piece  are  among  the 
most  convincing  that  ever  walked  the  boards  of 
a  Wedekind  play,  painted  too  in  colours  far  more 
sober  than  those  fantastic  luridities  with  which  this 
author  is  accustomed  to  disport  himself.  It  is, 
in  fact,  if  we  may  draw  a  slightly  startling  analogy, 
a  "  slice  of  life  "  play  of  the  Galsworthian  genre. 
Before  passing  from  Musik,  we  would  like  to  quote 
the  passage  describing  the  child's  death  as  typically 
characteristic  of  the  author's  brutal  pathos. 

Else.  The  bath  will  do  him  good  {with  her  bare  arm  in  the 
water) — it's  all  cooking  salt — the  salt  won't  hurt  him,  will  it, 
doctor  ? 

Dr.  Schwarzkopf  {by  the  cot,  dully).  There  is  nothing  more  to 
be  done.     The  child  is  dead. 

Klara  {gives  an  agonised  shriek). 

[The  Landlady  picks  up  the  tub  of  water  from  the 
floor  and  carries  it  out. 

In  Franziska  (191 2),  Wedekind  has  given  fresh  rein 
to  his  fantastic  exuberance.  This  weird  drama  deals 
with  the  experiences  of  an  ultra-modern  Mademoiselle, 
de  Maupin,  who,  having  sold  herself  to  the  devil  in 


158  MODERNITIES 

-the  shape  of  an  impresario,  who  holds  her  strictly 
to  her  bargain,  proceeds  to  see  life  like  a  veritable 
twentieth-century  female  Faust.  And  life,  forsooth, 
she  sees  with  a  vengeance,  playing  the  smart  "  blood  " 
in  a  gay  Wetnstube;  marrying  a  rich  heiress,  so  naive 
and  so  unsophisticated  as  to  put  everything  down  to 
sheer  frigidity  on  the  part  of  her  imagined  husband  ; 
successfully  masquerading  in  silk  knee-breeches  to  a 
silly  old  monarch  as  a  genuine  spirit,  only  finally,  like 
a  contemporary 

"In  veterem  Caeneus  revoluta  figuram," 

to  subside  both  purified  and  enlightened  byher  kaleido- 
scopic experiences  into  the  healthy  bliss  of  the  quasi- 
domestic  life  with  a  new,  honest,  and  well-meaning 
lover. 

The  wild,  rollicking  humour  of  this  play  will  perhaps 
appeal  in  vain  to  the  more  stolid  of  our  English 
minds.  Some  help  may  perhaps  be  found  for  the 
due  appreciation  of  this,  and,  indeed,  of  all  Wedekind's 
plays,  if  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  for  a  modern  woman 
to  live  her  own  life  in  Southern  Germany  {sich 
auszuleben,  to  employ  the  technical  and  official  phrase) 
is  not  revolutionary  but  elementary,  and  is  far  more 
of  a  cliche  than  a  new  departure.  Further,  the  play 
claims  to  be  treated  not  by  the  standards  of  the  ordi- 
nary drama,  but  as  a  problem  farce,  an  Aristophanic 
modernity,  a  philosophic  extravaganza,  a  dramatic 
anomaly,  very  much  sui  generis,  and  consequently  re- 
quiring very  special  critical  standards.  Judging  it  by 
these  standards,  it  is  impossible  not  to  be  swept  away 
by  the  high  spirits  of  this  strange  piece  of  art.  Who, 
too,  can  gainsay  the  practical  up-to-dateness  of  a  play 
where  maidens  insure  against  children,  wives  against 
infidelity,  monarchs  against  madness  ?  And  who  will 
not  admire  the  almost  morbid  conscientiousness  of 


FRANK   WEDEKIND  159 

Franziska,  who,  having  had  one  lover  of  the  name  of 
Veit,  and  another  lover  of  the  name  of  Ralph,  and 
becoming  subsequently  a  mother,  determines,  out  of 
comprehensive  precaution  and  sheer  sense  of  fairness, 
to  call  the  little  boy  by  the  impartial  designation  of 
Veitralph  ?  It  is,  however,  only  fair  to  state,  as  we 
have  already  hinted,  that  the  play  finishes  up  on  a 
note  of  genuine  pathos  and  semi-conjugal  affection. 

What,  then,  is  Wedekind's  final  claim  ?  As  a  play- 
wright in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  his  preten- 
sions are  negligible.  One  of  the  most  marked  features, 
however,  of  the  last  decade  and  a  half  has  been  the 
evolution  of  fresh  species  in  the  genus  drama.  Thus, 
apart  from  the  drama  or  play  of  action,  with  its 
orthodox  denouement  and  climax,  we  have  the  "idea" 
play,  as  in  Mr.  Shaw ;  the  "  slice  of  life  "  play,  as  in 
Mr.  Galsworthy ;  or  the  u  aesthetic  atmosphere  "  play, 
as  in  Maeterlinck.  Whether  we  call  such  work  drama, 
or  quasi-drama,  is  as  immaterial  from  the  larger 
standpoint  as  the  surname  we  choose  to  give  to  the  in- 
dividual who  did,  or  who  did  not,  write  Hamlet.  Even, 
however,  with  this  extended  classification,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  docket  into  any  definite  pigeon-hole  so  idio- 
syncratic a  temperament.  If  we  have  to  commit 
ourselves,  we  would  say  that  the  Wedekind  play  is 
the  lyric  play  of  irony — irony  both  comic  and  tragic. 
Even  making  all  due  allowances  for  defects,  for  the 
superfluous  thickness  with  which  sometimes  he  places 
his  harsh  and  violent  colours,  or  for  occasional  amor- 
phous construction,  as  in  Friihlingserwachen,  as  a  master 
of  irony  he  is  indisputably  a  genius.  No  sceva  indig- 
natioy  it  is  true,  lends  its  ethical  sanction,  no  Hellenic 
elpwveia  its  delicate  grace :  it  is  for  his  own  fiendish 
delectation  that  he  plies  his  knout  on  that  world  of 
abnormalities  called  into  existence  for  this  express 
purpose,  and  writhing  prettily  in  the  most  ingenious 


160  MODERNITIES 

of  dances.  Yet  with  what  art  and  dexterity  does 
he  operate,  finding  with  unerring  aim  the  raw  place 
of  his  victims,  and  drawing  from  these  apparent 
grotesques  the  blood  of  genuine  humanity.  Your 
specialist  will  no  doubt  diagnose  him  a  decadent,  yet 
he  is  tense  with  a  frenzied  virility.  It  is,  as  we  have 
said  before,  the  very  exuberance  and  violence  of 
his  energy  that  leads  him  plumb  the  abyss.  He 
has  himself  well  expressed  his  whole  outlook  on  life, 
and  indeed  the  whole  Nietzschean  standpoint,  in  the 
following  lines : 

"  For  them  your  kind  and  gracious  face, 

For  me  the  sword  smiles  sweet, 
For  me  the  savage  bear's  embrace, 

For  them  old  Bruin's  meat. 
The  brutal  foe's  own  strife  I  choose, 

They  the  humanities  of  truce." 


ARTHUR   SCHN1TZLER 

•'  My  dear  friend,  as  far  as  that  grotesque  realism  is  concerned,  which 
considers  it  its  duty  to  get  along  without  stage  management  or  prompter, 
that  realism  in  which  a  fifth  act  frequently  fails  to  be  reached  because  a 
tile  has  fallen  upon  the  hero's  head  in  the  second  act — I  am  not  interested. 
As  for  myself,  I  let  the  curtain  go  up  when  it  begins  to  be  amusing,  and  I 
let  it  go  down  at  the  moment  which  I  consider  fit." 

In  these  words,  touched  with  a  delicate  flippancy 
which  is  thoroughly  characteristic,  Arthur  Schnitzler 
endeavours  to  summarise  that  technique  which, 
though  it  has  lifted  him  to  the  summit  of  the 
Austrian  drama,  is  as  yet  comparatively  unknown  to 
the  English  public,  if  one  excepts  the  recent  perform- 
ance by  the  Stage  Society  of  The  Green  Cockatoo  and 
Countess  Mizzi,  and  the  production  of  Analol  at  the 
Palace  Music  Hall. 

It  is,  in  fact,  because  Schnitzler's  plays  combining, 
and  on  the  whole  combining  efficiently,  the  psycho- 
logical interest  of  pure  "  problem  "  with  the  emotional 
interest  of  pure  "  drama,"  afford  specimens  of  a 
type  novel  to,  at  any  rate,  the  majority  of  our 
theatre-goers,  that  they  provoke  something  more  than 
a  cursory  examination,  not  only  of  themselves,  but  of 
the  standpoint  and  method  of  the  man  who  wrote 
them.  Above  all  is  this  the  case  in  a  country  like 
England,  where  the  problem  play  is  hampered  by  so 
many  handicaps.  The  exaggerated  officialdom  of 
our  English  propriety,  beneficial  though  it  may  be 
from  the  moral  aspect,  produces  artistically  unfor- 
tunate results.  Many  first-class  problem  plays  are 
exiled  from  the  stage,  but  that  is  not  where  the  mis- 

161  L 


162  MODERNITIES 

chief  ends.  Even  when  they  are  produced,  it  is  only 
to  be  looked  on  with  suspicion  as  eccentric  symptoms 
of  dangerous,  not  to  say  anarchistic  tendencies. 
When,  however,  official  and  "  respectable  "  dramatists 
(i.e.  dramatists  of  the  stamp  of  Mr.  Pinero  or  of  Mr. 
Sutro)  produce  so-called  problem  plays  before 
official  and  "  respectable "  audiences  (i.e.  audiences 
of  a  calibre  other  than  that  of  those  who  patronise 
the  Little  Theatre  and  Stage  Society  performances),  it 
will  be  usually  found  (if,  indeed,  the  play  is  not  an 
innocuous  family  drama,  or  simply  a  comedy  of 
intrigue,  for  in  many  cases  the  word  u  problem  "  has 
degenerated  into  a  mere  euphemism  for  some  slight 
forgetfulness  of  the  Seventh  Commandment)  that 
the  dramatist  has  sacrificed  the  duty  of  working  out 
his  problems  logically  and  artistically  to  the  still 
more  paramount  duty  of  appeasing  the  moral  con- 
sciousness of  his  audience. 

Further,  it  is  one  of  the  precepts  of  our  dramatic 
technique,  most  honoured  in  the  observance,  that  the 
action  should  take  place  among  people  of  high  social 
position  ;  as,  however,  it  so  happens  that  it  is  rather 
among  the  more  intellectual  and  introspective  of  the 
middle  classes  that  genuine  problems  tend  to  arise, 
the  scope  of  the  dramatist  becomes  automatically 
narrowed.  Of  course  we  have  our  dramatic  left 
wing,  Mr.  Shaw,  Mr.  Galsworthy,  Mr.  Barker,  our 
ultra-modern  exponents  of  the  drama  of  ideas  and 
the  drama  of  psychology.  But  here,  again,  our 
revolutionaries  overshoot  the  mark  in  their  reaction 
from  the  orthodox.  Mr.  Shaw  will  bombard  us 
with  ideas  till  we  can  hardly  stand.  When,  however, 
we  have  recovered  our  balance,  we  observe  that, 
however  indisputable  may  be  his  pre-eminence  as  a 
thaumaturgic  apostle  of  a  successfully  dechristianised 
Christianity,    his    characters    are    marked    by    com- 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  163 

paratively  few  traits  of  individual  psychology,  and 
participate  in  comparatively  little  dramatic  action. 
It  is,  indeed,  with  profound  appreciation  of  his  weak- 
ness that  "  talking  "  is  set  by  Mr.  Shaw  as  a  final 
seal  on  the  Superman.  Mr.  Galsworthy  and  Mr. 
Barker,  it  is  true,  do  give  us  not  only  elaborate  dis- 
cussion of  social  problems  (though  not  infrequently 
an  airy  discussion  of  things  in  general  is  dragged  in 
forcibly  with  no,  or  little,  reference  to  the  action  of 
the  play),  but  also  refined  and  delicate  delineations  of 
individual  character.  But  with  the  possible  exception 
of  the  grandiose  and  monstrous  Waste  and  the  statu- 
esque thesis  and  antithesis  of  the  sociological  Strife, 
their  plays  are  not  dramatic.  To  express  it  with 
almost  childish  implicity,  their  plays  are  not  u  ex- 
citing." With  a  few  exceptions,  they  are  charged  with 
no  atmosphere  and  abut  at  no  climax. 

Mere  ideas,  however,  will  not  make  the  dramatic 
world  go  round,  and  mere  psychology  often  only 
makes  it  go  flat.  Few  words  are  mouthed  with  such 
fluent  irresponsibility  as  "  technique,"  but  it  may  be 
said — and  said,  we  think,  truly,  and  without  affectation 
— that  no  play  can  be  a  success  without  a  certain 
minimum  of  u  technique  "  ;  that  is  to  say,  either  one 
continuous  thread  of  dramatic  interest  on  which 
successive  acts  are  strung,  or  some  particular  arch- 
effect  to  which  (especially  if  a  one-acter)  the  whole 
play  abuts,  and  to  the  atmosphere  of  which  all  the 
elements  are  harmoniously  toned. 

The  vice  of  the  English  drama,  then,  is  this  :  plays 
of  good  technical  mechanism  possess  little  or  no  "  pro- 
blem "  interest  ;  plays  of  "  problem  "  or  psychological 
interest  possess  little  or  no  technical  mechanism. 

Let  us,  consequently,  glancing  first  at  his  plays, 
and  perhaps  later  at  those  short  stories  which  stand 
in  the  most  intimate  relation  to  his  one-acters,  ascer- 


164  MODERNITIES 

tain  to  what  extent  Schnitzler  has  solved  successfully 
the  great  "  problem  of  the  problem." 

Liebelei,  which  was  produced  first  in  1895,  is  an 
excellent  example  both  of  Schnitzler's  powers  and  of 
Schnitzler's  limitations.  The  motif  of  the  play  is  the 
problem  of  the  refined  middle-class  girl,  who  stands,  if 
we  may  borrow  the  terminology  of  popular  melo- 
drama, at  the  cross-roads.  Which  turning  is  it  better 
for  her  to  take — the  right  turning,  or  the  wrong 
turning  ? 

Fritz,  a  sentimental  young  Viennese  student,  is  dis- 
cussing in  his  rooms  the  affairs  of  his  heart  with  the 
saner  and  more  practical  Theodor.  Fritz  is  melan- 
choly. He  has  been  sustaining  a  grand  passion  for 
a  married  woman,  but  the  looming  shadow  of  the 
husband  obsesses  him.  Are  his  nerves  playing  him 
tricks,  or  has  the  husband  ascertained  ? 

Theodor  advises  him  to  sail  in  shallower  and  less 
troubled  waters.  "  You  must  go  for  your  happiness 
where  I  did — and  found  it,  too — where  there  are  no 
great  scenes,  no  dangers,  and  no  tragic  developments, 
where  the  first  steps  are  not  particularly  hard  and 
the  last,  again,  are  not  painful,  where  one  receives 
the  first  kiss  with  a  smile  and  parts  finally  with  the 
softest  feeling." 

Scruples  are  out  of  place  on  the  principle,  "  Better 
myself  than  someone  else,  and  the  someone  else  is  as 
inevitable  as  Fate." 

Theodor,  moreover,  has  not  only  prescribed  the 
cure,  but  has  ordered  the  medicine.  Enter  Mizzi,  the 
actual  "  happiness "  of  Theodor,  and  Christine,  the 
prospective  "  happiness"  of  Fritz.  Mizzi  the  practical 
prepares  supper,  while  the  sweet  naivete  of  the  genu- 
inely unsophisticated  Christine  captivates  the  jaded 
soul  of  our  fin  de  Steele  romantic.  There  ensues  a 
scene  of  the  most  delicate  gaiety  and  camaraderie. 


ARTHUR  SCHNITZLER  165 

All  is  health  and  goodwill.  Even  Mizzi  the  prosaic 
shows  her  passion  for  the  picturesque  on  learning  that 
Fritz  is  in  the  Dragoons  : 

Mizzi.   Are  you  in  the  yellow  or  the  black  ? 
Fritz.   I'm  in  the  yellow. 
MlZZI  {dreamily).   In  the  yellow. 

Could  there  be  a  more  subtle  probing  into  the  soul 
of  the  novelette-reading  shopgirl  ? 

Then,  at  the  zenith  of  the  feast,  when  glasses  are 
clinking  and  souls  are  flowing,  enter  the  skeleton. 
The  company  is  packed  into  the  next  room,  and 
Fritz  is  left  to  arrange  a  duel  with  the  man  whom 
he  has  wronged.  Exit  the  skeleton,  re-enter  the  re- 
vellers ;  yet  the  shadow  of  the  looming  death  casts  a 
gloom  even  over  the  unconscious  minds  of  the  others. 
The  girls  bid  a  gay  farewell  to  the  young  men,  but 
the  aftermath  of  the  old  love  is  already  poisoning  the 
sweets  of  the  new. 

The  next  scene  is  in  the  lodgings  of  Christine  on 
the  eve  of  that  duel  of  which  the  love-stricken  girl 
is  in  blissful  ignorance.  Christine,  bien  entendu,  in 
contradistinction  to  the  casual  and  heart-whole  Mizzi, 
is  taking  her  love-affair  with  the  maximum  of  seri- 
ousness. Katherine,  a  benevolent  busybody  of  a 
neighbour,  puts  Weiring,  the  musician  father  of 
Christine,  on  his  guard.  Weiring,  however,  having 
been  the  uncomplaisant  brother  of  his  sister,  is  deter- 
mined, on  the  strength  of  his  experience,  to  be  the 
complaisant  father  of  his  daughter. 

Weiring.  I  became,  Heaven  knows,  proud,  and  gloried  in  my 
conduct — and  then,  little  by  little,  the  grey  hairs  came  and  the 
wrinkles,  and  one  day  went  by  another  till  her  whole  youth  was 
gone — and  gradually,  so  that  one  could  scarcely  notice  it,  the  young 
girl  became  an  old  maid,  and  then  I  first  began  to  suspect  what  I 
had  really  done. 

Katherine.  But,  Herr  Weiring  .  .  . 

Weiring.    I  can  see  how  she  often  used  to  sit  with  me  in  the 


166  MODERNITIES 

evening  by  this  lamp  in  this  room,  with  her  silent  smile,  with  a 
strange  kind  of  devotion,  as  if  she  still  wished  to  thank  me  for 
something,  and  I — the  one  thing  I  wanted  most  to  do  was  to 
throw  myself  on  my  knees  and  ask  for  her  forgiveness  for  guard- 
ing her  so  well  from  all  dangers  and  from  all  happiness. 

The  act  ends  with  a  love-scene  between  Christine 
and  Fritz,  poignant  in  its  irony.  He  is  all-in-all  to 
her,  she  is  just  something  to  him  ;  but  he  goes  off  to 
fight  a  duel  on  account  of  another  woman  without  so 
much  as  bidding  her  a  real  farewell. 

In  the  third  act  the  news  of  Fritz's  death  is  broken 
to  Christine,  and  here  comes  the  most  subtle  and 
delicate  touch  of  all.  Poignant  as  is  her  grief  at  his 
death,  her  grief  at  the  casual  flippancy  of  his  treat- 
ment is  even  more  poignant.  Our  jin  de  siecle  Ophelia 
rushes  madly  out  of  the  house  to  commit  suicide  in 
the  nearest  brook,  or  perhaps  more  probably  under 
the  nearest  train,  to  point  the  philosophic  moral, 
"  A  bas  la  grande  passion  !      Vive  I  Amourette  !  " 

The  play,  however,  should  be  read  or  seen  to 
obtain  an  adequate  appreciation  of  the  precision 
with  which  each  character  is  drawn,  the  spontaneity 
with  which  the  dialogue  flows,  and  the  lyric  pathos 
with  which  the  whole  is  invested.  The  limitations, 
such  as  they  are,  simply  lie  in  the  fact  that  each  act 
is  self-complete  in  itself.  However  good  they  may 
be,  three  consecutive  one-acters  never  made  a  drama. 
To  compare  great  things  with  low,  each  act  of  a 
drama,  like  each  instalment  of  a  feuilleton,  should 
leave,  as  it  were,  the  hanging  tag  of  some  vital  inter- 
rogation. The  dramatic  banquet  should  not  only 
regale  the  mind  of  the  spectator  during,  but  titillate 
it  with  the  aftermath  between  the  acts. 

As  we  shall  see  later,  when  he  comes  to  dramatise 
on  the  larger  scale,  Schnitzler  not  infrequently  ex- 
hibits the  defects  of  those  very  qualities  which  make 
him  so  supreme  in  the  sphere  of  the  one-acter. 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  167 

In  Mdrchen  (the  Fairy  Tale),  on  the  other  hand, 
the  problem  is  brought  more  officially  into  the  fore- 
ground of  the  play,  while  each  act  is  more  closely 
connected  with  those  which  follow  or  precede  it. 
Fedor  Denner,  a  romantic  young  journalist  (nearly 
all  Schnitzler's  young  men  are  highly  romantic),  is 
in  love  with  Fanny,  a  young  actress  on  the  threshold 
of  theatrical  success,  and  of  those  dangers  which 
follow  so  closely  in  the  wake  of  theatrical  suc- 
cess. Fedor,  moreover,  is  not  only  romantic,  he 
is  modern — ultra-modern.  And  so,  in  the  inspiring 
atmosphere  of  Fanny's  home  circle,  where  the  mother 
bustles  about  with  the  refreshments  and  the  "  good  " 
piano-teacher  of  a  sister  discourses  music  for  the 
edification  of  the  journalists,  painters,  and  students 
who  frequent1  the  house,  he  gives  an  impassioned  little 
lecture  on  the  "  Fairy  Tale  of  the  Fallen  Woman  " 
and  on  the  "  washed-out  views  and  dead-beat  ideas  " 
of  which  the  fairy  tale  is  composed.  The  little 
lecture,  however,  goes  off  just  a  little  too  successfully. 
In  a  climax,  marvellous  in  its  tacit  concentration, 
Fanny  takes  an  opportunity  of  kissing  his  hand. 
Fedor  is  revolted,  however,  by  the  revelation  implied 
in    this    pathetic    gratitude.     He    had   contemplated 

marriage,    but    now For   the  time  being    he 

nurses  in  solitary  misery  all  the  pangs  of  retro- 
spective jealousy.  Then  Fanny,  unable  to  bear  the 
separation,  rushes  headlong  into  his  arms.  Then 
comes  the  great  act  of  the  play.  We  are  back  once 
more  in  the  house  of  Fanny's  mother.  The  young 
actress,  having  scored  a  brilliant  success  on  the 
Vienna  stage,  has  been  offered  a  splendid  contract 
in  St.  Petersburg  by  Moritzki,  the  agent.  If,  how- 
ever, she  goes  to  St.  Petersburg,  she  will  have  to 
face  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  life  unsheltered  by 
the    respectability    of    a    family.      The    problem    is 


168  MODERNITIES 

acute.  Fanny,  however,  places  the  Fate  of  her  life 
on  the  knees  of — Fedor.  And  Fedor  shuffles  and 
vacillates. 

Fanny.  Come,  and  you — what  do  you  say  yourself? 

Fedor.  After  you  have  received  Herr  Moritzki  at  the  house 
you  can  scarcely  seriously  mean  to  refuse  him. 

Fanny.  Herr  Denner,  I  consider  you  an  exceptionally  shrewd 
man,  I  ask  you  for  your  advice. 

Fedor.  Yes,  I  think  ...  I  would  accept. 

Fanny.  Good !    {To  Moritzki.]    Herr  Moritzki. 

Woman-like,  however,  having  signed  the  contract, 
she  craves  time  to  reconsider.    Fedor  looks  at  it  again. 

Fanny.  Fedor — you  gave  me  the  contract  back. 

Fedor.  Well,  yes. 

Fanny.  You  should  have  torn  it  up,  dear.    Why  didn't  you  do  it  ? 

Fedor.  You  should  not  have  signed  it,  Fanny. 

Fanny.  Fedor  !  It  is  unbearable — you're  driving  me  out  of  my 
senses. 

Fedor.  But  you  yourself  don't  quite  know  your  own  mind. 
There's  something  in  you  which  craves  for  adventures. 

Fanny.  Fedor — if  you  would  only  put  me  to  the  test — I  will  do 
anything  you  want — only  tell  me. 

And  then,  eventually,  Fedor  owns  up. 

Fedor.  Would  I  not  still  have  to  kiss  away  from  your  lips  the 
kisses  of  other  men  ? 

And  so  Fanny  forsakes  the  life  of  domesticity  for 
the  life  of  the  actress. 

The  chief  defect,  however,  in  this  play  is  that,  in 
spite  of  all  its  dramatic  compound  of  psychology, 
pathos,  and  problem,  the  problem  is  not  fairly  pre- 
sented, in  that  Fanny,  being  of  inferior  social  status 
to  Fedor,  the  question  of  whether  he  shall  marry 
her  must  inevitably  be  influenced  by  purely  snobbish 
considerations.  It  is  only  when  the  woman  is  of 
equal,  if  not  slightly  superior,  rank  to  the  man  that 
the  real  problem  of  her  ante-nuptial  chastity  can  be 
discussed  with  real  sociological  fairness. 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  169 

In  Die  Vermachtniss  (produced  in  Berlin  in  1898), 
the  problem  which  our  dramatist  has  made  the  centre 
of  his  play  is  the  relation  to  the  family  of  the  mistress 
and  child  of  the  dead  son  of  the  house.  The  dash- 
ing young  cavalry  officer  is  brought  home  fatally 
wounded  from  a  fall  from  his  horse.  Realising  his 
approaching  death,  he  informs  his  parents  of  his 
responsibilities.  Death  raises  the  home  circle  to  a 
pitch  of  more  than  ordinary  humanity.  In  spite  of 
their  poignant  jealousy  at  the  existence  of  other 
affections  and  another  home  life,  they  send  for  their 
son's  household,  and  accede  to  his  dying  request  to 
incorporate  it  into  the  family. 

Act  II  shows  the  mistress  installed  in  the  bosom 
of  her  lover's  family.  Modernity,  however,  though 
satisfying  to  the  heroic  pose,  has  its  penalties.  Our 
ultra-modern  family  finds  itself  confronted  with 
social  ostracism.  Still,  they  love  their  grandchild, 
and  the  mother  of  the  grandchild  is  the  price  that 
they  must  pay.  But  the  grandchild  dies.  The  semi- 
official daughter-in-law  consequently  becomes  a  some- 
what unprofitable  luxury,  and  in  the  final  act  is  given 
her  conge.  Even  more  than  in  Liebelei,  however,  the 
claim  to  merit  lies  almost  exclusively  in  the  precision 
with  which  each  successive  phase  of  the  problem  is 
portrayed.  As  a  series  of  family  pictures,  the  play 
succeeds,  and  succeeds  brilliantly ;  as  a  drama  of 
continuous  interest,  it  fails,  and  fails  hopelessly. 

The  next  play  of  Schnitzler  is  The  Veil  of  Beatrice. 
This  "  tragedy  of  sensualism  "  has  qualities  too 
arresting  to  be  lightly  disregarded.  The  dramatist 
has  forsaken  his  problems  to  portray  how  the  fatal 
temperament  of  a  young  girl  of  the  Italian  Renais- 
sance works  out  its  own  destruction. 

In  the  first  act,  we  are  shown  the  garden  of  Filippo, 
a    poet   of  Bologna,  which  is  on  the  eve  of  being 


170  MODERNITIES 

plundered  by  the  enemy.  The  heads  on  Bolognese 
shoulders  are  worth  little  purchase,  and  who  leaves 
not  the  town  to-night  will  never  leave  the  town  at 
all.  The  Duke  invites  Filippo  to  the  palace  to  recite 
his  poems.  Filippo  refuses,  so  that  he  may  leave  the 
city  of  doom  with  his  beloved  Beatrice,  a  daughter  of 
the  people.  On  learning,  however,  that  Beatrice  has 
dreamt  of  the  Duke,  he  spurns  her  in  an  egoistic 
paroxysm  of  refined  jealousy,  typical  in  its  subtlety 
more  of  the  twentieth  century  than  the  Renaissance. 

"  So  much  I  give  thee,  more  than  thou  canst  dream, 
So  much  that  to  be  worthy  of  my  love, 
Loathing  should  fasten  on  thee  at  the  thought 
This  earth  is  trod  by  other  men  than  I." 

Beatrice  leaves  him  with  the  vague  intimation — 

"  Feel  I  that  without  thee  I  cannot  live 
And  have  desire  for  death,  I  come  again 
To  take  thee  with  me." 

In  the  second  act,  Beatrice  is  on  the  point  of 
marrying  her  legitimate  suitor,  Vittorino,  and  escap- 
ing from  the  town,  when  the  Duke  appears  and 
proposes  to  exercise  the  jus  ultimce  noctis.  Owing 
to  the  remonstrances  of  her  brother  Francesco,  he 
generously  offers  to  relinquish  his  intentions.  Beatrice 
is  bidden  to  go  on  her  way,  but  stands  riveted  to  the 
spot  by  a  fatalistic  impulse  to  realise  her  dream.  And 
what  is  more,  she  insists  on  being  the  wife  of  the  Duke. 
Her  wish  is  granted.  The  nuptials  are  celebrated  by 
a  gigantic  fete  in  the  palace,  whose  doors  are  thrown 
open  to  rich  and  poor.  Beatrice,  however,  with 
the  placid  naivete  of  her  will-less  temperament,  flies  to 
Filippo. 

"  What  boots  it, 
Were  I  this  eve  an  empress  to  whom  worlds 
Bowed,  or  the  callat  of  a  fool  ?     For  I 
Am  with  thee  now  to  die  by  thine  own  side." 


ARTHUR  SCHNITZLER  171 

Filippo  pretends  to  poison  both  her  and  himself, 
and  on  her  discovering  the  ruse,  commits  suicide  in 
earnest.  Beatrice  rushes  back  to  the  palace,  but 
discovering  that  she  has  left  behind  that  priceless  veil 
which  was  the  wedding-gift  of  her  husband,  leads 
back  the  Duke  to  the  chamber  of  love  and  death. 
The  living  is  confronted  with  the  dead  rival,  and  the 
indignant  Francesco  slays  his  sister. 

The  power  of  this  tragedy,  however,  lies  not  so 
much  in  the  actual  plot  or  even  in  the  marvellous 
delineation  of  Beatrice,  gracefully  and  innocently 
childish  in  the  very  irresponsibility  of  her  fated  sin, 
as  in  the  rich  tints  of  the  picture  and  the  gorgeous 
frame  in  which  the  picture  is  set.  All  the  multi- 
coloured elements  of  the  Renaissance  take  their  place 
in  the  vivid  scheme — poets,  sculptors,  courtiers, 
courtesans,  soldiers,  and  populace.  Annihilation  and 
vitality  grow  each  more  grandiose  from  their  mutual 
juxtaposition,  and  the  red  blood  of  life  flows  but  the 
quicker  and  the  warmer  beneath  the  black  shadow 
of  doom.  Few  more  eloquent  tragedies  have  been 
written  on  the  great  twin  themes :  "  In  the  midst  of 
life  we  are  in  death  ;  in  the  midst  of  death  we  are  in 
life." 

Reverting  back  to  prose,  we  come  to  Der  Einsame 
Weg  {The  Lonely  Way,  1903).  If,  however,  the 
tendency  to  import  the  methods  of  the  short  story 
and  the  long  novel  were  apparent  in  Liebelei  and 
Vertndchtniss,  it  is  even  more  marked  in  this  play.  A 
son,  finding  a  sire  in  the  shape  of  the  middle-aged  lover 
of  his  now  dead  mother,  repudiates  the  natural  for 
the  putative  father  ;  a  neurotic  and  over-sexed  young 
girl,  finding  that  her  lover,  unknown  to  himself,  is 
suffering  from  an  incurable  disease,  dies  by  her  own 
act.  These  are  the  two  motifs,  knit  together  by  no  shred 
of  logical  connection,  which  form  the  threads  on  which 


172  MODERNITIES 

the  drama  is  hung.  Yet,  if  here  we  have  Schnitzler 
at  his  worst,  the  many  excellences  even  of  this  play 
attest  by  implication  the  merits  of  Schnitzler  at  his 
best.  The  scene  between  father  and  son  is  a  sheer 
masterpiece.  How  delicately  does  the  father  inti- 
mate that  **  mothers  also  have  their  destinies  like 
other  women."     And  how  complete  is  his  rejection. 

Julian.  It  is  now  absolutely  impossible  for  you  to  forget  that 
you  are  my  son. 

Felix.  Your  son — it  is  nothing  but  a  word — it  is  a  mere  empty 
sound — I  know  it,  but  I  don't  realise  it. 

Julian.  Felix ! 

Felix.  You  are  further  away  from  me  since  I  know  it. 

Interesting,  again,  is  the  Nietzschean  sanction  for 
intrigue :  "  One  has  the  right  to  exploit  to  the  com- 
pletest  extent  all  one's  life  with  all  the  ecstasy  and  all 
the  shame  which  is  involved." 

Far  superior,  however,  to  Der  Einsame  Weg,  with 
its  heavy  Ibsenite  atmosphere,  is  Zwischenspiel  (1905), 
where  that  problem  of  the  quadrangle,  compared  to 
which  that  of  the  triangle  is  from  the  more  advanced 
standpoint  but  vieux  j'eu,  is  treated  with  the  most 
delicate  and  biting  raillery.  Victor  Amadeus,  the 
pianist,  and  his  wife  Cecilie,  the  singer,  love  each 
other  with  as  much  genuine  constancy  as  can  be 
expected  from  normal  persons  of  the  artistic  tempera- 
ment. Victor  Amadeus,  however,  philanders  with  a 
countess,  and  his  wife  with  a  prince.  Mutual  jealousy ! 
Too  civilised,  however,  to  interfere  by  any  display  of 
primitive  emotion  with  the  sacred  love  of  the  new 
modernity, they  grant  each  other,  on  general  principles, 
carte  blanche.  And  so,  at  the  end  of  Act  I,  they 
separate  for  their  mutual  holiday.  Henceforward  the 
husband  and  wife  are  to  be  the  most  Platonic  of 
comrades.  The  necessities  of  their  professional  en- 
gagements, however,  bring   about   their   meeting  in 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  178 

their  old  home.  But  the  affair  with  the  countess  is 
dead,  and  the  affair  with  the  prince  has  apparently 
not  yet  matured.  Then  do  Victor  Amadeus  and 
Cecilie  forget  the  ultra-modern  theories  which  they 
are  bound  in  duty  to  exemplify,  and  only  realise  that 
they  are  man  and  woman.  Bursting  with  his  new 
humanity,  Victor  Amadeus  begins  in  the  third  act  to 
be  quite  jealous  of  the  prince.  His  astonishment 
can  consequently  be  imagined  when  his  Serene  High- 
ness presents  himself  to  ask  the  husband  formally  for 
the  hand  of  the  wife.  On  the  situation  being  ex- 
plained to  him,  the  prince  gracefully  retires,  gallant 
gentleman  that  he  is.  But  the  reunited  pair  cannot 
live  happily  ever  after.  Cecilie,  it  is  true,  had  been 
faithful,  but  faithful,  she  explains,  by  the  narrowest  of 
margins.  She  cannot  guarantee  the  future  ;  and  does 
not  history  repeat  itself  ?  True,  they  had  loved  each 
other,  but  what  love  can  be  proof  against  the  theories 
of  the  newer  sexual  ethics  ? 

"  If  we  had  only  before,"  says  Cecilie,  "  shrieked 
into  each  other's  faces  our  rage,  our  bitterness,  our 
despair,  instead  of  posing  as  superior  people  who 
never  lost  their  heads,  then  we  should  have  been  true 
to  ourselves — and  that  we  never  were." 

And  so  that  parting,  taking  place,  as  it  does,  when 
all  barriers  but  their  two  selves  have  disappeared, 
rings  down  the  curtain  on  this  most  brilliant  of 
satires  on  the  ultra-modern. 

On  almost  as  high  a  level  is  Der  Freiwild,  a  piece 
which  gains  an  added  interest  from  the  fact  that  it 
has  not  only  been  censored  because  an  army  officer  is 
given  a  box  on  the  ears,  but  that  the  actors  on  one 
occasion  refused  to  play  it  till  solemnly  assured  by 
the  author  that  the  apparent  realism  of  the  portrayal 
of  the  procurer-impresario  was,  after  all,  merely  poetic 
licence.     The  play  is  a  vehement  satire  on  the  duel. 


174  MODERNITIES 

In  a  scene  marvellous  in  its  ingenious  stagecraft  and 
airy  atmosphere,  we  are  shown  the  picturesque 
gardens  of  an  Austrian  pleasure  resort.  Close  by  is 
the  local  theatre,  where  musical  comedy  is  performed 
for  the  entertainment  of  officers.  One  of  the  actresses, 
however,  Anna,  shocks  all  orthodox  traditions  by 
refusing  to  participate  in  that  social  life  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  manager,  is  the  sacred  duty  of  the  efficient 
chorus  girl.  For  Anna,  Paul  Rohring,  an  analytical 
painter,  entertains  feelings  which  are  quixotic,  and 
Karinksy,  a  heavy  bully  of  a  fire-eater,  feelings  typical 
of  a  less  exalted  Don.  But  the  overtures  of  Karinsky 
are  rebuffed  ignominiously.  Rohring  cannot  repress 
the  smile  of  sarcastic  triumph.  The  discomfited 
lady-killer,  aspersing  the  name  of  Anna  with  an  in- 
solent gaucherie,  has  his  ears  boxed  for  his  pains. 
The  inevitable  challenge  is  brought  to  Rohring  by 
one  Poldi,  the  complete  exponent  of  punctilious 
aristocracy,  the  past-master  in  all  the  intricacies  of 
the  duelli  codex,  the  super-gentleman.  But  Rohring, 
who  is  anxious  to  marry  Anna  and  live  a  long  and 
happy  life,  rejects  the  inevitable  challenge.  Genuine 
consternation  on  the  part  of  Poldi,  who  explains  that 
the  unpurged  shame  of  the  box  on  the  ears  spells 
ruin  to  Karinski's  military  career.  Poldi  proposes  a 
compromise — the  solemn  farce  of  a  bloodless  duel. 
Rohring,  however,  disdains  playing  dummy  parts  in 
solemn  farces.  It  is  all  madness.  It  is  in  vain  that 
the  incarnation  of  military  honour  expostulates. 

¥  For  you  it  is  madness,  but  others  have  grown 
up  in  this  madness  ;  what  is  madness  to  you  is  for 
others  the  very  element  in  which  they  live." 

Finally,  Rohring  is  given  to  understand  that,  unless 
he  flees,  the  outraged  Karinski  will  shoot  him  at  sight. 
But  with  a  somewhat  human  perversity  our  heroic 
painter  refuses  to  run  away.     An  encounter  a  VAtneri- 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  175 

caine  takes  place  in  the  gardens,  but  Rohring,  draw- 
ing just  a  second  too  late,  is  shot  dead.  And  now, 
as  orthodox  applause  to  the  red-handed,  cold-blooded 
murderer,  comes  from  the  mouth  of  Karinski's  own 
friend  in  six  words  the  indictment  of  the  duel, 
irrevocably  damning  in  the  cold  subtlety  of  its  satire  : 
"  And  now  you  have  won  back  your  honour." 

If,  however,  in  this  play  Schnitzler  proved  his 
ability  to  write  a  problem  drama  which  should  be 
something  more  than  a  mere  series  of  isolated  phases, 
we  find  again  in  his  next  play,  The  Call  of  Life,  in 
spite  of  its  many  excellences,  the  old  taint  of  the 
one-acter. 

-  The  motif  of  the  play  is  the  claim  of  the  desire 
for  life  to  ride  rough-shod  over  all  other  claims.  A 
beautiful  daughter  is  wasting  the  best  years  of  her 
life  in  the  care  of  a  querulous  father,  incurably  ill, 
but  never  dying.  The  little  garrison  town  is  agog 
with  the  excitement  of  a  newly  declared  war.  This 
war,  moreover,  has  a  special  interest,  in  that  the 
local  regiment,  the  Blue  Cuirassiers,  had  in  the  last 
war,  by  ignominious  flight,  branded  itself  with  shame. 
Though  this  episode  took  place  over  thirty  years  ago 
and  none  of  the  actual  renegades  are  now  in  the 
regiment,  the  Blue  Hussars,  with  that  inflated  idea 
of  honour  only  found  in  Teutonic  countries,  resolve 
to  purge  the  disgrace  by  dying  gloriously  in  the 
front  of  the  fray.  Among  the  officers  is  Lieutenant 
Max,  who  has  cast  on  Marie,  the  beautiful  daughter, 
eyes  of  admiration.  Irony,  moreover,  sharpens  the 
situation  when  the  bedridden  father,  who  was  once 
a  member  of  the  Blue  Cuirassiers,  explains  he 
himself  was  responsible  for  the  historic  flight. 

"  What  was  the  good  of  it  ?  Who  would  have  thanked  me  ? 
They  would  have  put  me  in  a  grave  with  a  thousand  others  and 
piled  the  earth  on  top,  and  that  would  have  been  the  end  of  iL 


176  MODERNITIES 

And  I  wouldn't  have  it.  I  wanted  to  live — to  live  like  others. 
I  wanted  to  have  a  wife  and  children  and  live.  And  so  I  rushed 
from  the  field  ;  and  so  it  has  happened  that  the  young  men  whom 
I  don't  know  are  going  to  their  death  and  that  I  still  live  on  at 
seventy-nine  and  will  survive  them  all — all — all." 

The  old  soldier,  however,  is  unduly  sanguine  as 
to  the  protraction  of  his  life,  for  the  same  call  of 
life  which  ordered  him  from  the  battle  orders  his 
daughter  to  pour  poison  into  the  water  for  which  he 
now  craves. 

It  is  outside  the  purpose  of  this  essay  to  argue 
the  ethics  of  this  precipitation  of  the  inevitable. 
Suffice  it  that  it  constitutes  a  most  efficient  curtain — 
a  curtain,  however,  so  efficient  that  there  seems  no 
compelling  necessity  for  a  continuation  of  the  play. 
A  continuation,  however,  there  is,  and  in  the  rooms 
of  Max,  which  are  visited  at  night  by  Marie,  who 
ensconces  herself  behind  a  curtain.  She  sees  the 
major's  wife  come  to  urge  a  vain  prayer  that  he 
should  desert  the  army  and  elope  with  her.  They 
are  discovered  by  the  major,  who,  shooting  the  wife, 
spares  the  lover.  It  is,  however,  when  the  major 
leaves  that  we  understand  the  intense  hypertrophy 
of  life  evoked  by  imminent  death.  Marie,  knowing 
all,  yet  presents  herself.  Max  can  only  realise  that  his 
life  has  but  a  few  remaining  hours,  and  that  these 
remaining  hours  stand  now  before  him.  Another 
curtain,  strong,  if  slightly  crude,  yet  followed  by  a 
third  act,  which  is  nothing  but  an  epilogue. 

This  somewhat  exaggerated  scorn,  however,  of 
such  of  the  more  complicated  effects  of  theatricalism 
as  are  manifested  in  the  ingenious  concatenation  of 
the  plot,  or  the  representation  of  sensational  incidents 
which  have  no  justification  but  their  own  inherent 
dramatic  force,  fails  absolutely  to  affect  Schnitzler's 
position  as  a  writer  of  one-act  plays.     Indeed,  it  is 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  177 

his  subordination  of  plot  to  atmosphere  that  consti- 
tutes in  this  sphere  his  paramount  excellence.  As, 
moreover,  Mr.  Henry  James  in  his  Embarrassments  and 
Terminations  wrote  short  stories  independent  in  them- 
selves yet  harmonising  with  some  permeating  motif,  so 
has  Schnitzler  in  his  Anatol,  Marionetten,  and  Lebendigen 
Stunden  given  us  symmetrical  one-act  sequences. 

Let  us  deal  first  with  the  Anatol-Cyclus,  a  series 
of  one-acters  portraying  the  amoristic  vicissitudes  of 
a  fin  de  siecle  sentimentalist,  flitting  prettily  from  heart 
to  heart,  till  he  is  eventually  encompassed  by  the 
matrimonial  net.  Little  action  weighs  down  these 
delicate  pieces.  Anatol  and  the  flame  of  the  moment 
participate  in  a  dialogue,  or  Anatol  appeals  to  the 
worldly  wisdom  of  his  friend  Max  to  rescue  him  from 
some  dilemma  in  which  he  has  been  landed  by  his 
own  weakness  or  his  own  folly.  That  is  all.  Yet 
each  piece  sheds  a  little  more  light  upon  the  holy  of 
holies  of  Anatol's  heart,  and  illumines  with  equal 
clarity  and  colour  the  charm  and  individuality  of 
each  successive  priestess  of  the  temple.  Though  no 
doubt  the  chief  effect  of  the  cycle  lies  in  its  accumu- 
lative force,  some  idea  of  the  general  airiness  and 
brilliance  may  perhaps  be  obtained  by  a  short  sketch 
of  two  of  the  most  striking.  In  The  Question  to  Fate 
Anatol  confides  to  Max  his  anxiety.  Does  the  flame 
of  the  moment  burn  true  and  for  him  alone  ?  By 
hypnotism  he  proposes  to  extract  from  his  uncon- 
scious love  that  answer  which  will  make  him  either 
the  happiest  or  the  most  miserable  of  mankind. 
Cora  enters,  and  is  duly  soothed  into  a  hypnotic 
trance.  Anatol,  however,  insists  on  being  left  alone 
with  her  at  this  critical  moment  of  his  fate,  so  Max 
retires  into  the  adjoining  room.  And  now,  when 
the  helpless  girl  is  ready  to  answer  every  question, 
and,   what    is    more,   to   answer   it    with    automatic 

M 


178  MODERNITIES 

accuracy,  and  the  book  of  truth  lies  ready  in  his 
trembling  hand,  the  seeker  of  knowledge  has  not  the 
courage  to  know.  Waking  her  up  with  a  kiss,  he 
expresses  complete  reassurance  to  the  re-entering 
Max.  Cora,  however,  manifests  a  perhaps  intelligible 
anxiety  as  to  the  nature  of  her  answers. 

In  the  Farewell  Supper,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid 
in  the  cabinet  particulier  of  a  Viennese  restaurant, 
Anatol  describes  to  Max  the  ineffable  woes  of  being 
on  with  the  new  love  before  he  is  off  with  the  old. 
What  a  strain  it  is,  moreover,  to  be  compelled  to  eat 
two  suppers  every  night !  However,  he  and  Anna 
(the  old  love)  had  at  the  initiation  of  their  romance 
arranged  to  confide  to  each  other  the  first  symptom 
of  approaching  ennui.  To-night  at  this  supper  he 
will  tactfully  intimate  that  she  is  no  longer  indispen- 
sable to  his  soul's  happiness.  He  implores  Max  to 
stay  as  the  helpful  buffer  in  an  inevitable  scene.  Enter 
Anna,  fresh  from  the  stage  and  hungry  for  oysters. 
The  pangs  of  starvation  temporarily  appeased,  Anna 
announces  that  she  has  something  important  to  com- 
municate. She  has  grown  tired  of  Anatol  and  fallen 
in  love  with  another.  She  hopes  he  will  not  mind, 
but  better  she  should  tell  him  now  than  when  it  was  too 
late.  Collapse  of  Max  into  uproarious  laughter.  With 
pique  mingling  with  his  relief,  Anatol  rises  to  the  occa- 
sion, professing  the  righteous  indignation  of  a  wounded 
spirit.  To  vindicate  his  armour-propre,  he  contemptu- 
ously informs  her  that  he  too  has  fallen  in  love  with 
another,  but  as  far  as  he  is  concerned  his  confession 
does  come  too  late.  "  Only  a  man  could  be  so  brutal," 
retorts  Anna ;  "  a  woman  would  never  be  so  tactless 
as  to  say  anything  so  crude."  And  so  the  comedy 
ends  with  the  girl  carrying  off  the  remains  of  the 
supper  to  her  cavalier  round  the  corner. 

The    whole    cycle,   however,   should    be    read    to 


ARTHUR  SCHNITZLER  179 

appreciate  the  racy  ripple  of  the  dialogue,  the  subtle 
malice  of  the  characterisation,  and  the  general  verve 
and  irony  of  these  most  sparkling  of  comedies. 

Perhaps  at  this  moment  it  may  be  convenient  just 
to  mention  the  audacious  psychology  of  the  super- 
Boccacian  Reigen.  English  decorum,  no  doubt,  for- 
bids anything  but  the  most  casual  allusion  to  this 
sequence  of  duologues,  where  all  the  members  of 
the  social  hierarchy  are  linked  together  by  participa- 
tion in  the  same  eternal  plot. 

Yet  in  its  way,  this  book,  written  originally  for  a 
select  circle  and  subsequently  published  by  universal 
request,  is  one  of  the  most  refined  feats  of  intel- 
lectualism  which  Schnitzler  has  ever  performed.  For 
the  delicacy  of  the  style  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  the 
delicacy  of  the  subject-matter,  and  the  various 
nuances  of  social  technique  are  described  and 
differentiated  with  the  masterly  touch  of  combined 
experience  and  intuition.  Scarcely  suited,  no  doubt, 
as  a  Sunday  School  prize,  the  book  will,  none  the 
less,  well  repay  perusal  by  modern  men  and  women 
of  the  modern  world. 

The  series  Marionetien,  to  which  allusion  has  already 
been  made,  has  for  its  motif  the  ironic  tragedy  of 
those  who  essay  to  manipulate  the  lives  of  others. 
The  best  of  three  plays  is  The  Puppet-player.  To  the 
happy  fireside  of  Eduard  and  Anna  there  is  intro- 
duced an  old  friend,  George  Merklin,  whom  the 
husband  had  casually  encountered.  Merklin  is  a 
picturesque,  if  battered,  Bohemian  who  encircles 
himself  somewhat  showily  with  a  halo  of  alleged 
mysticism.  The  whole  art  of  the  dramatist,  however, 
in  this  little  piece  is  devoted  to  creating  an  atmos- 
phere of  light  melancholy,  in  which  the  poetic  isola- 
tion of  the  second-rate  genius,  Merklin,  stands  in 
vivid  contrast  to  the  prosaic  happiness  of  his  less 


180  MODERNITIES 

gifted  friend.  The  climax  comes  when  it  transpires 
that  Merklin  had  loved  Anna  in  the  past  and  had 
brought  the  two  together  by  way  of  a  psychological 
experiment  at  a  Bohemian  supper. 

"  The  little  girl  who  was  so  nice  to  you  simply  did  what  I  wished. 
You  two  were  the  puppets  in  my  hand.  I  pulled  the  strings.  It 
was  arranged  that  she  should  pretend  to  be  in  love  with  you.  For 
you  always  roused  my  sympathy,  my  dear  Eduard  ;  I  wanted  to 
awake  in  you  the  illusion  of  happiness,  so  that  you  should  be 
ready  for  true  happiness^when  you  found  it." 

And  so  this  shoddy  superman  goes  out  into  this 
lonely  world,  having  played  with  the  fates  of  others 
only  to  have  played  away  his  own  life's  happiness. 

Perhaps,  however,  Schnitzler's  most  characteristic 
series  of  one-acters  is  the  one  headed  Lebendige 
Stunden.  Life  should  be  weighed  as  much  by  quality 
as  by  quantity.  One  man  can  traverse  more  life 
in  a  few  seconds  than  another  in  whole  years.  It  is 
typical,  however,  of  Schnitzler's  method  that  he 
essays  not  merely  to  lead  up  to  a  violent  climax 
by  artifices  of  calculated  stagecraft,  but  to  set  the 
vivid  hour  in  an  harmonious  and  poetic  frame.  The 
most  striking  of  the  series  is  the  extraordinary 
fantasia,  The  Woman  with  the  Dagger. 

Leonhardt,  a  seriously  romantic  youth,  in  ap- 
parently the  full  flush  of  his  first  grand  passion, 
meets  the  wife  of  a  dramatic  author  in  the  Renais- 
sance saloon  of  a  picture  gallery.  Pre-eminent 
among  the  pictures  on  the  wall  is  that  of  a  woman 
robed  in  white,  holding  a  dagger  in  her  uplifted 
hand,  and  gazing  at  the  floor  as  if  there  lay 
someone  whom  she  had  murdered.  It  is  then 
in  this  atmosphere  that  our  gallant  urges  his  suit 
to  the  unresponsive  Pauline,  who  coolly  informs  him 
that  she  has  confessed  to  her  husband  that  she  is 
in  danger,  and  that  they  are  travelling  away  to-morrow. 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  181 

And  then,  as  she  is  on  the  point  of  saying  farewell, 
she  stands  before  the  picture. 

Pauline  (looking  closer).    Who  lies  there  in  the  shadow  ? 

Leonhardt.  Where? 

Pauline.  Do  you  not  see  ? 

Leonhardt.  I  see  nothing. 

Pauline.  It  is  you. 

Leonhardt.  I  ?    Pauline,  what  an  extraordinary  jest ! 

And  then,  as  they  look  and  look,  they  fall  into 
an  hypnotic  trance  and  the  clock  of  the  world  goes 
back  some  five  hundred  years.  Pauline  has  become 
Paola,  and  Leonhardt,  Lionardo,  while  the  racy 
Viennese  idiom  is  turned  to  classical  blank  verse. 
It  is  early  dawn  in  the  studio  of  the  Master  Remigio, 
and  Remigio  is  away  on  his  travels.  Lionardo  arro- 
gates the  claims  of  love  on  the  strength  of  the 
favours  which  he  has  just  enjoyed.  Paola  spurns 
him  as  the  mere  mechanical  toy  of  her  passion.  She 
loves  and  has  always  loved  her  husband.  That  this 
is  no  mere  pose  is  apparent  from  the  fact  that  on 
the  sudden  entrance  of  the  husband  she  immediately 
elucidates  the  situation.  Remigio,  however,  with 
a  sublime  tolerance,  perhaps  more  typical  of  the 
husband  in  Mr.  Shaw's  Irrational  Knot  than  of  a  hot- 
blooded  Italian,  pardons  Paola  on  the  general 
principles  of  twentieth-century  philosophy.  Lionardo, 
however,  piqued  and  insulted  as  being  regarded  as 

"  The  glass,  the  poor  mean  glass 
From  which  a  child  drank  a  forbidden  draught, 
The  merest  pitiful  tool  of  a  chance  and  fate," 

vows  vengeance  on  Remigio.  Paola  anticipates  this 
vengeance  by  killing  Lionardo  on  the  spot  with  a 
dagger,  thus  exemplifying  the  pose  of  the  picture. 
Remigio  rises  to  the  occasion  and  seizes  on  this 
splendidly  tragic  attitude  to  complete  an  unfinished 
portrait  of  this  loyalest  of  wives. 


182  MODERNITIES 

And  then  they  awaken  from  their  trance.  But 
the  magnet  of  destiny  draws  them  inexorably. 
Pauline  grants  the  assignation,  with  an  air,  however, 
of  mystic  fatality,  which  shows  only  too  well  with 
what  precision  the  present  must  once  again  mirror 
the  past. 

But  perhaps  the  most  sustained  and  elaborated 
specimen  of  our  author's  method  is  the  ironic 
tragedy  of  the  French  Revolution,  The  Green  Cockatoo. 
The  "  Green  Cockatoo "  is  an  underground  tavern 
where  brilliant,  if  disreputable,  actors  give,  for  the 
edification  of  their  aristocratic  audiences,  impromptu 
representations  of  crime  and  vice. 

Henri,  the  star-man,  moreover,  has  just  married 
the  actress  Leocadie,  not  for  the  sake  of  paradox,  but 
in  all  seriousness.  When  his  turn  comes,  he  rushes 
on  to  the  stage  shouting  out  that  he  found  his  wife, 
Leocadie,  with  her  lover  the  duke,  and  killed  her. 
Such  a  calamity  being  not  apparently  prima  facte 
improbable,  even  the  manager  is  almost  as  alarmed 
as  the  audience,  till  he  realises  that  the  whole  thing 
is  but  an  histrionic  tour  deforce.  And  then,  as  the  play 
progresses,  the  atmosphere  becomes  more  and  more 
lurid  with  impending  gloom.  Jest  and  reality  inter- 
mingle in  the  subtlest  of  ironies.  It  is  part  of  the 
entertainment  that  the  ragamuffins  should  lavish  on 
their  patrons  the  freest  of  insults.  But  is  there  not 
a  paradox  within  the  paradox,  when  one  remembers 
that  the  Bastille  has  fallen  that  very  day  ?  The 
various  types,  moreover,  of  an  aristocracy  exhibiting 
the  levity  of  people  who  are  shortly  going  to  be 
hanged  are  delightfully  portrayed — the  viveur,  "  for 
whom  every  day  is  lost  in  which  he  has  not  captured 
a  woman  or  killed  a  man,"  the  pretty  young  noble 
whose  corrupt  flirtation  is  so  deftly  adumbrated,  and 
the    lascivious   grande   dame,   who,    in    spite    of    her 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  183 

husband's  anxiety,  is  very  far  from  shocked  at  these 
spectacular  novelties.  And  then  Henri  snaps  up  the 
truth  from  the  demeanour  of  the  manager  and  his 
colleagues.  The  Duke  comes  on  to  the  stage  and 
the  actor  then  gives  yet  another  representation  of  the 
avenging  husband — and  this  time  he  surpasses  him- 
self, for  he  is  but  acting  the  truth. 

Less  sensational,  but  of  equal  psychological  grim- 
ness,  is  the  play  The  Mate,  which  is  in  the  same 
series  as  the  Green  Cockatoo.  The  theme  is  the 
pathetic  irony  of  the  illusion  of  a  middle-aged  pro- 
fessor, who  gives  an  almost  paternal  benediction  to 
what  he  fondly  imagines  to  be  the  grand  passion  of 
his  young  and  temperamental  wife.  When,  conse- 
quently, his  wife  dies  suddenly,  the  husband  is 
prepared  quite  honestly  to  condole  with  the  lover, 
for  after  all  has  he  not  a  right  to  be  pitied  even 
more  than  himself  ?  When,  therefore,  he  learns 
from  his  young  colleague  that  he  has  just  become 
engaged  to  another  girl  with  whom  he  has  been 
in  love  for  some  time  his  righteous  indignation  is 
unbounded. 

"  I  would  have  raised  you  from  the  ground  if  you  had  been 
broken  by  grief.  I  would  have  gone  with  you  to  her  grave,  if  the 
woman  who  is  lying  over  there  had  been  your  love  ;  but  you  have 
turned  her  into  your  wanton,  and  you  have  filled  this  house  with 
lies  and  foulness  right  up  to  the  roof  till  it  makes  me  sick — and 
that's  why — that's  why,  yes,  that's  why  I'm  going  to  kick  you 
out." 

But  there  is  an  anti-climax  within  an  anti-climax, 
for  the  man  learns  from  a  mutual  woman  friend  of 
the  dead  woman  and  of  himself,  that  the  imagined 
grande  passion  had  been  even  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  lady  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  miserable 
trumpery  adventure. 

Reverting  now  to  Schnitzler's  longer  plays,  some 


184  MODERNITIES 

mention  should  be  made  of  Komtesse  Mizzi,  Der 
Junge  Medardus,  and,  above  all,  Das  Weites  Land. 

Komtesse  Mizzi,  entitled,  appropriately  enough,  (t  A 
Family  Day"  is  in  form  a  one-acter,  though  of 
sufficient  length  and  substance  to  have  obtained 
separate  publication.  There  is  little,  if  any,  action. 
The  play  is  based  on  character,  dialogue,  and  situa- 
tion. Yet  it  possesses  distinct  psychological  titra- 
tion in  its  presentation  of  a  daughter  who  takes  a 
filial  interest  in  her  father's  "actress-mistress,"  and 
who  is  sensible  enough,  aristocrat  though  she  is,  to 
meet  the  lady  herself  with  all  friendliness,  and  chat 
with  her  as  woman  to  woman  without  the  slightest 
affectation.  This  feminine  freemasonry,  however,  is 
perhaps  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  countess  her- 
self has  lived  her  own  life,  to  such  good  effect  that 
she  is  the  mother  of  a  grown-up  boy  by  her  father's 
best  friend,  Prince  Egon.  When,  consequently,  the 
prince  introduces  the  boy  as  his  own  natural  child 
by  an  unknown  mother,  the  atmosphere  becomes 
somewhat  rare.  At  first  highly  irritated,  she  treats 
with  frigid  indifference  the  frank  exuberant  youth, 
who  divines  the  truth  with  instinctive  intuition,  only, 
however,  shortly  afterwards  to  consent  to  marry  the 
prince,  and  thus  become  the  official  stepmother  of 
her  own  long-lost  child.  The  racy  worldly  optimism 
of  this  play  is  particularly  characteristic  of  the 
essentially  benevolent  malice  of  the  Schnitzlerian 
cynicism. 

Of  a  totally  different  order  is  Der  Junge  Medardus,  a 
long  play  of  historical  patriotism,  specially  written 
for  the  respectable  and  official  Burg  Theater  of 
Vienna.  It  might  seem  indeed  at  first  sight  that 
Schnitzler,  the  refined,  ultra-modern  analyst,  would 
be  somewhat  out  of  his  element  amid  all  the  blood 
and  thunder  of  the  Napoleonic  campaigns,  which  prima 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  185 

facie  offer  but  small  scope  for  psychological  subtleties. 
The  tour  de  force  consequently  becomes  all  the  more 
creditable  when  the  author,  in  spite  of  all  his  trappings 
of  patriotic  melodrama,  manages  successfully  to 
execute  his  own  favourite  tricks.  The  canvas  on 
which  this  drama  is  portrayed  is  so  vast  as  to  render 
any  synopsis  necessarily  inadequate.  The  idyll,  how- 
ever, and  double  suicide  of  the  young  French  prince 
Franz  and  the  bourgeois  girl  Agatha,  is  one  of  the 
purest  and  sweetest  love  episodes  which  Schnitzler 
has  ever  written.  But  it  is  Agatha's  brother, 
the  young,  brave,  and  picturesque  Medardus,  who 
provides  the  most  precious  examples  of  recherche 
psychology.  The  suicide  of  the  dead  couple,  Agatha 
and  Franz,  had  been  occasioned  by  the  refusal  of 
Franz's  family  to  consent  to  the  marriage.  When, 
consequently,  Franz's  sister,  Helene  (a  character 
somewhat  analogous  to  Mathilde  de  la  Mole  in 
Stendhal's  Le  Rouge  et  le  Noir)  wishes  to  put  flowers 
on  the  graves  of  the  dead  pair,  Medardus  refuses  to 
allow  her.  Helene  has  him  challenged  by  her  suitor, 
but  Medardus  emerges  triumphantly  from  the  duel. 
Anxious  to  carry  the  war  into  the  enemy's 
camp,  and  to  redress  the  balance  of  the  family 
account,  he  succeeds,  by  the  dashing  conquest  of  the 
most  perilous  difficulties,  in  becoming  the  lover  of 
Helene,  with  the  eventual  object  of  rousing  the  whole 
household  and  flaunting  to  her  own  family  the 
haughty  girl's  dishonour.  Helene,  however,  is  erratic 
in  her  favours.  Medardus,  like  Julien,  is  scorched 
by  his  own  fire.  The  ending,  moreover,  of  the  play, 
though  extremely  effective  theatrically,  strikes  us 
from  the  psychological  standpoint  as  distinctly  false. 
Helene  and  Medardus  both  plot  to  assassinate 
Napoleon.  Hearing  that  Helene  is  Napoleon's 
mistress,    Medardus  kills   her  instead   of   Napoleon. 


186  MODERNITIES 

So  far,  so  good.  But  when  our  quixotic  hero, 
when  offered  a  free  pardon  on  the  sole  condition 
that  he  undertakes  to  make  no  further  attempt 
against  Napoleon's  life,  obstinately  refuses  to  give 
the  required  word,  one  can  only  say  that  he  is 
observing  the  etiquette  neither  of  melodrama  nor 
even  of  life,  but  solely  of  patriotic  tragedy. 

But  of  all  the  longer  plays  of  Schnitzler,  the  best 
and  most  distinctive  in  that  erotic  "  General  Post " 
entitled  Das  Weite  Land  (The  Wide  Country).  This 
drama,  which  is  the  only  full-dress  drawing-room 
comedy  which  Schnitzler  has  written,  belongs  to  what 
we  have  already  designated  as  the  "  slice  of  life " 
school.  It  depends  for  its  convincingness  neither  on 
any  particularly  drastic  situation  nor  on  the  dispro- 
portionate merit  of  any  individual  act.  The  author 
simply  takes  a  group  of  representative  modern  people, 
rich,  intellectual,  and  energetic,  and  shows  the  respec- 
tive crossings  and  intertwinings  of  their  various  lives. 
The  complexity  of  the  intrigue  is  overwhelming,  not 
to  say  bewildering,  for  practically  every  character, 
from  the  prolific  Aigon  to  the  virginal  Erna,  and  from 
the  active  business  man  Friedrich  to  his  polyandrous 
wife  Genia,  is  subject  to  one  or  more  erotic  moods, 
with  whose  more  or  less  simultaneous  conjugation  in 
the  past,  present,  and  future  tenses  the  play  specifically 
deals.  Though,  too,  all  the  characters  lead  emotional 
lives,  they  deserve  credit  in  that  they  none  of  them 
wear  their  souls  upon  their  sleeves,  or  carry  their 
temperaments  in  their  pockets  with  the  ostentatious 
affectation  of  those  Sudermannic  personages  who 
never  for  a  moment  lose  the  consciousness  that  they 
are  living  in  an  atmosphere  of  '*  high  problem."  For 
the  people  with  whom  we  have  now  to  deal  are  so 
occupied  with  the  concrete  acts  of  their  actual  lives 
that  they  have  little  time  to  waste  in  mere  airy  gener- 


ARTHUR  SCHNITZLER  187 

alities.  When  consequently  they  do  philosophise, 
shortly,  crisply,  and  in  the  light  of  personal  experience, 
they  are  for  that  very  reason  all  the  more  convincing. 
The  whole  motif  of  this  play,  where  the  spirits  of 
Congreve  and  Henry  James  seem  to  amalgamate  in 
so  strange  but  yet  so  harmonious  a  compound,  is  well 
crystallised  in  the  following  quotation  :  *  Love  and 
deception — faithfulness  and  unfaithfulness — adora- 
tion for  one  woman  and  desire  for  another  woman  or 
several  others,  yes,  my  good  Hofreiter,  the  soul  is  a 
wide  country." 

As  can  be  seen  from  these  tolerant  words,  which 
have  all  the  greater  force  in  that  the  man  who  speaks 
them  is  at  any  rate  temporarily  more  or  less  in  love 
with  his  friend's  wife,  the  mood  in  which  the  problem 
of  promiscuity  is  treated  is  less  one  of  indignant 
satire  than  of  an  ironic  charity,  which,  while  finding 
the  complications  at  once  comic  and  tragic,  yet  assigns 
to  every  phase  of  love  from  the  kiss  Friedrich  gave  to 
Erna  three  thousand  metres  above  the  sea,  to  Otto's 
nocturnal  escalades  of  Genia's  room,  its  own  specific 
emotional  value,  even  though  the  final  verdict  is  to 
be  found  in  the  words  of  the  middle-aged  Friedrich, 
refusing  to  elope  with  the  twenty-year-old  Erna : 
u  Everything's  an  illusion  !  " 

From    the   point  of  view,  also,   of    concentrated 

crispness  of  dialogue  and  characterisation,  Schnitzler 

has  never  achieved  anything  better  than  this  play. 

How  telling  in  particular  is  the  dialogue  between  the 

mutually   unfaithful   spouses,   Genia   and    Friedrich. 

The    husband    is    interrogating    his    wife    about     a 

young  Russian  virtuoso  who  had  just  blown  out  his 

brains. 

Genia.   He  was  not  my  lover.     I'm  sorry  to  say  he  was  not  my 
lover.     Is  that  enough  for  you  ! 

Or  take  again  the  passage  between  Friedrich  and 


188  MODERNITIES 

Genia   after   Friedrich  has  just  fought  a  fatal  duel 
with  the  twenty-five  year  old  naval  officer,  Otto. 

Genia.  But  why  ?  If  you  cared  the  least  bit  about  me — if  it  had 
been  a  case  of  hate — if  it  had  been  jealousy — love — 

Fred.  No — I  feel  at  any  rate  damned  little  of  all  that.  But  no 
man  likes  to  be  made  an  ass  of. 

In  his  new  asexual  play, Professor  Bernhardt,  Schnitz- 
ler  strikes  out  an  entirely  new  line,  leaves  that  light, 
airy  sphere  which  he  had  made  so  peculiarly  his  own, 
and  embarks  into  the  grim  realms  of  pure  problem. 
The  play  is  an  avowed  and  deliberate  tract  in  the 
manner  of  Granville  Barker,  Galsworthy,  or  Brieux. 
Yet  however  devoid  it  may  be  of  those  qualities  which 
one  is  accustomed  to  label  Schnitzlerian,  it  is  the  most 
earnest,  the  most  ethical,  the  most  convincing  of  all  his 
plays. 

Put  shortly,  the  piece  deals  with  an  *  affaire 
Dreyfus  "  in  the  medical  profession.  Professor  Bern- 
hardi,  a  great  Jewish  doctor,  has  in  the  face  of  numer- 
ous obstacles  succeeded  in  building  up  the  prosperity 
of  a  new  hospital,  the  Elisabethinum,  treating  mainly 
Catholic  patients,  but  supported  mainly  by  Jewish 
funds.  A  substantial  percentage  of  the  staff  are 
Jewish,  and  it  is  instructive  to  observe  how  almost 
instinctively  the  Jews  and  Catholics  range  themselves 
into  two  camps.  In  the  first  act  a  Catholic  girl  is 
dying  of  septic  poisoning  as  the  result  of  some  outside 
doctor's  clumsy  attempt  to  help  her  to  escape  the 
consequences  of  her  own  indiscretion.  The  patient 
herself,  however,  in  a  state  of  blissful  delirium,  con- 
fident of  recovery,  and  expecting  the  speedy  advent  of 
her  lover,  is  deriving  the  maximum  of  enjoyment  out 
of  the  few  minutes  she  has  yet  to  live.  Under  these 
circumstances  there  arrives  a  Catholic  priest,  sent 
for,  not  by  the  girl  but  by  a  nurse,  with  the  object 
of  administering  the  last  sacrament.     Out  of  sheer 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  189 

humanity  and  medical  conscientiousness,  Professor 
Bernhardi  is  reluctant  to  have  his  patient's  last  hours 
marred  by  the  realisation  of  her  death  and  the  shatter- 
ing of  her  happy  dream.  The  Catholic  priest  is  in- 
sistent. The  Professor  is  politely  firm.  There  is  an 
animated  dialogue  in  the  course  of  which  the  Pro- 
fessor touches  the  priest  very  lightly  on  the  shoulder, 
though  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  an  assault. 
In  the  meanwhile  the  patient  dies  comfortably.  The 
Clerical  and  Anti-semitic  parties  exploit  the  incident 
with  inaccurate  though  artistic  journalistic  embellish- 
ments. There  is  a  tremendous  uproar.  The  Gover- 
nors of  the  hospital  threaten  to  resign.  Under  pressure 
from  his  friends,  the  Professor  is  willing  to  tender, 
not  indeed  an  abject  apology,  but  a  polite  explana- 
tion. The  Clerical  party  thereupon  blackmail  him  by 
threatening  to  raise  the  question  in  Parliament,  if  he 
does  not  secure  the  election  to  a  vacant  post  on  the 
hospital  staff  of  a  Catholic  candidate  who  is  on  the 
one  hand  the  protegS  of  the  cousin  of  their  leader, 
and  on  the  other  hand  incompetent.  Refusing  to  be 
a  party  to  the  job,  Bernhardi  secures  the  election  to 
the  post  of  a  man  who  is  both  competent  and  a  Jew. 
Bernhardi,  moreover,  relies  on  the  personal  assurance 
of  Flint,  the  Minister  for  Education  and  Public 
Worship,  that  he  will  help  him  by  his  support  in 
Parliament.  When,  however,  matters  came  to  a  head, 
Flint,  scenting  in  the  middle  of  his  speech  with  the 
divine  flair  of  the  true  politician  the  actual  state  of 
public  opinion,  throws  Bernhardi  to  the  wolves  and 
himself  suggests  a  prosecution  for  sacrilege.  The 
Executive  Board  of  the  hospital  are  divided  as  to 
what  course  they  shall  pursue.  Shall  they  pass  a 
vote  of  confidence  in  their  chief,  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
suspend  him  until  the  determination  of  the  proceed- 
ings.    By  a  fine  stroke  of  irony  Bernhardi  realises 


190  MODERNITIES 

that  he  will  be  in  a  minority  through  the  vote  of  the 
very  Jew  through  the  conscientious  insistence  on 
whose  election  to  the  Board  he  had  lost  the  proffered 
opportunity  of  bribing  the  Clericals  and  squaring  the 
whole  matter.  He  consequently  resigns  from  the 
Board.  The  trial  takes  place.  The  priest  himself 
denies  that  there  was  any  assault.  Bernhardi,  how- 
ever, is  defended  by  a  converted  Jew,  who,  sinking 
the  advocate  in  the  Catholic,  conducts  the  case  so 
lukewarmly  that  Bernhardi  is  convicted  on  the  per- 
jured evidence  of  a  vindictive  colleague  and  a  hysteri- 
cal lay  sister.  During  the  trial  the  priest  is  convinced 
that  Bernhardi  was  morally  right  in  the  course  which 
he  adopted,  but,  as  he  feels  subsequently  driven  as  a 
matter  of  conscience  to  inform  him,  refrained  out  of 
sheer  religious  duty  from  telling  the  truth.  Bern- 
hardi serves  his  term  and  becomes,  much  to  his 
disgust,  a  political  hero  and  a  popular  martyr.  The 
hysterical  lay  sister  eventually  confesses  her  per- 
jury and  Bernhardi  is  finally  righted,  though  the  final 
note  in  the  play  is  that  Bernhardi  was  really  rather 
a  fool  to  have  involved  himself  in  such  grave 
consequences  for  the  mere  sake  of  a  quixotic 
principle.  Some  portion  possibly  of  the  effect  pro- 
duced by  this  play  depends  on  the  full  appreciation 
of  its  personal  allusions  and  some  knowledge 
of  the  circumstances  on  which  it  was  substanti- 
ally founded.  Nevertheless,  present  symptoms 
would  appear  to  indicate  that  this  play  will  have 
especial  interest,  not  only  to  Jews  and  Anti-Semites, 
but  to  impartial  students  of  ethics  and  sociology. 
Though,  moreover,  "  pure  problem "  and  studded 
with  long  didactical  speeches,  the  dramatic  interest 
is  well  sustained,  at  any  rate  up  to  the  fourth  Act, 
while  the  different  characters  are  distinguished  with 
the  sharpest  precision.     We  would  refer  in  particular 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  191 

to  Flint,  that  delightfully  bland  opportunist,  that 
benevolently  unscrupulous  politician,  that  perfectly 
conscientious  hypocrite  who  honestly  believes  that 
there  is  a  higher  and  larger  duty  both  in  politics  and 
in  life  than  the  observance  of  one's  own  principles 
and  the  keeping  of  one's  given  word. 

Schnitzler,  moreover,  is  not  only  a  dramatist,  but 
a  writer  of  short  stories  and  novels,  which  stand  on 
practically  as  high  a  level  as  his  plays.  Like  De 
Maupassant,  Schnitzler  has  only  one  real  motif.  Un- 
like De  Maupassant,  however,  it  is  the  psychological 
complications  in  which  he  is  chiefly  interested.  In 
further  contrast,  his  short  stories  lack  that  inevitable 
precision  of  climax  which  is  the  chief  mark  of  the 
French  author.  Yet  perhaps  it  is  for  this  very 
reason  that,  with  their  picturesque  atmosphere  and 
pathetic  simplicity,  they  obtain  an  added  reality. 
In  the  almost  clinical  minuteness  of  his  psychology, 
explicable  from  the  fact  that  he  was  once  a  doctor, 
he  is  reminiscent  of  Mr.  Henry  James,  of  a  Mr. 
James,  however,  who  writes  without  preciosity  about 
individuals  linked  with  ordinary  human  beings  by 
very  much  more  than  just  some  shred  of  normality. 
Among  his  earlier  short  stories  we  would  mention  in 
particular  Die  Frau  der  Weisen,  Das  neue  Lied,  and 
the  hypnotic  fantasia  at  the  beginning  of  Dammerseelen. 

The  more  recent  series,  Masken  und  Wunder,  also 
possesses  a  well-merited  claim  to  recognition  for  its 
series  of  studies,  some  modern,  some  symbolical,  yet 
all  written  with  that  almost  intangible  softness,  com- 
bined at  the  same  time  with  a  certain  neat  strength, 
which  is  the  essential  mark  of  Schnitzler's  literary 
style.  One  of  the  most  striking  is  the  telepathic 
romance,  Redegondds  Diary ;  but  in  our  view  the  best 
short  story  in  the  whole  book  is  that  Maupassantian 
Death  of  the  Bachelor  where  the  three  intimate  friends 


192  MODERNITIES 

of  a  dead  man  are  summoned  to  his  bedside,  only  to 
find  their  friend  dead  and  to  read  in  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  them  all,  of  the  three  separate  yet  identical 
domestic  reasons  which  were  responsible  for  their 
participation  in  this  superb  piece  of  posthumous 
buffoonery. 

Far  more  significant  than  any  of  his  short 
stories  is  Schnitzler's  comparatively  recent  novel, 
Der  IVeg  ins  Freie  (The  Road  to  the  Open),  a 
novel  which  both  by  its  actual  success  and  its 
intrinsic  merit,  stands  out  conspicuously  among 
modern  German  literature.  This  book  is  an  admir- 
able example  of  what  one  can  perhaps  call  the 
u  slice  of  life  "  novel.  Actual  plot  in  the  stereotyped 
sense  of  the  term  it  has  none.  Georg  von  Wergen- 
thin,  a  young  aristocratic  Viennese  dilettante,  has,  in 
the  course  of  an  active  emotional  life,  a  fairly  serious 
liaison  with  Anna  Rosner,  a  music-mistress  belonging 
to  a  good  Jewish  set.  The  child  to  which  Anna  and 
Georg  had  both  been  looking  forward,  though  in 
somewhat  varying  degrees,  dies.  Georg  accepts  a 
post  of  conductor  in  a  German  town.  Anna  re- 
assumes  the  normal  tenor  of  her  spinster  life. 
Finis.  Neither  conventional  marriage  nor  even 
more  conventional  suicide,  but  just  life,  a  slice  of 
sheer  probable  real  convincing  life.  But  the  book 
is  far  more  than  the  history  of  Anna,  and  far  more 
than  the  history  of  Georg,  even  though  it  would 
appear  at  first  sight  that  the  enumeration  of  Georg's 
emotions  tends  somewhat  to  swamp  the  four  hundred 
and  sixty  pages  of  this  novel  which  yet  reads  so 
shortly.  For  Georg's  soul  is  a  mirror  which  reflects 
not  only  itself  but  a  considerable  number  of  the 
more  interesting  characters  of  a  specific  modern 
Viennese  set.  And  the  lives  of  Anna  and  Georg 
touch  the  lives  of  numerous  other  persons,  persons 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  193 

too  who,  at  any  rate,  give  the  impression  of  being 
no  mere  characters  in  novels,  but  of  having  been 
honourably  plagiarised,  and  without  suffering  either 
caricature  or  idealisation  in  the  process,  from  the 
pages  of  the  book  of  life  itself.  And  all  these 
various  lives  are  followed  up  and  adumbrated  and 
described  at  greater  or  lesser  detail.  Of  course  they 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  story  of  Georg  von 
Wergenthin.  But  they  play  an  important  part  in 
the  life  of  Georg  von  Wergenthin,  just  as  he  plays  a 
more  or  less  important  part  in  their  existence.  And 
though  of  course  Georg  is  the  nominal  hero  of  the 
book,  it  is  the  modern  Jewish  set  with,  of  course,  its 
Gentile  appanages  which  constitutes  the  real  subject- 
matter.  And  how  vivid  and  interesting  on  their 
merits  are  all  these  characters — old  Ehrenberg,  the 
Jewish  millionaire,  with  his  delightful  habit  of  talking 
Yiddish  before  smart  company,  specially  to  annoy 
his  snobbish  son  Oskar  j  Oskar  himself,  who,  on  being 
caught  by  his  father  in  the  flagrant  act  of  posing  as  a 
Catholic  in  front  of  a  church  and  given  a  box  on  the 
ears  by  way  of  reproof,  makes  an  abortive  attempt 
to  commit  hara-kiri  with  a  revolver ;  Else  Ehrenberg, 
the  temperamental,  but  unmarried  sister  of  Oskar ; 
Heinrich  Bermann,  the  brilliant  self-centred  author, 
with  his  grand  passion  for  his  faithless  actress  in  the 
foreign  town  ;  Leo  Golowski,  the  enthusiastic  Zionist ; 
Therese  Golowski,  the  Socialist  agitatress,  with  her 
temporary  trip  with  that  fascinating  hussar-officer, 
Demeter  Stanzides  ;  Winternitz,  the  poet,  with  his 
not  very  soigne  hands  and  his  naif  mania  for  reciting 
his  own  erotic  verses  ;  Dr.  Stauber,  the  benevolent 
modern  of  the  last  generation  ;  Anna  herself,  with 
her  soft  wistfulness  and  her  essential  dignity  ;  Sissy 
Wyner,  with  her  high  wanton  spirits  and  pretty 
English  accent ;  and  of  course  Georg  himself,  Georg 

N 


194  MODERNITIES 

the  aristocrat,  Georg  the  grand  amoureux,  Georg  the 
composer,  Georg  the  dilettante,  Georg  the  drifter, 
Georg  the  ineffectual. 

In  the  technique  of  this  novel  Schnitzler  marks 
what  we  suggest  to  be  a  new  departure,  by  the 
insertion  of  substantial  slabs  of  past  life  into  the 
analysis  of  his  hero's  thoughts,  a  process  which  by 
a  tremendous  economy  of  space  and  time  thus  de- 
scribes simultaneously  the  inner  workings  of  Georg's 
mind,  and  simultaneously  narrates  important  pieces 
of  antecedent  history  which  have  no  place  in  the 
official  action  of  the  novel. 

Some  tribute,  also,  must  be  paid  to  the  style,  which 
is  at  times  soft  and  sweet,  at  times  light  and  crisp, 
yet  always  lucid,  always  individual,  and  always 
possessed  of  that  gracefulness  which  is  so  rare  a 
quality  in  German  prose  literature. 

To  revert  to  Schnitzler  the  dramatist,  what 
are  his  chief  claims,  his  chief  excellences,  his  chief 
defects  ?  It  seems  to  us  that  the  essence  of  his 
merit  lies  in  the  fact  that,  speaking  broadly,  he 
handles  problems  neither  as  ends  in  themselves,  as 
do  the  more  advanced  of  our  own  dramatists,  nor 
yet,  like  Sudermann,  as  mere  pegs  on  which  to  hang 
violently  theatrical  stage  effects.  Some  problem 
may  constitute  the  centre  of  most  of  his  plays ;  yet, 
with  a  few  exceptions,  this  problem  is  not  presented 
too  nakedly  or  without  sufficient  relief.  Each  problem 
is  bathed  in  an  artistic  atmosphere,  and  each  char- 
acter in  the  picture  limned  with  the  most  subtle 
psychology.  It  is  true  that,  as  has  already  been 
pointed  out,  many  of  the  acts  in  his  early  longer 
dramas  exhibit  too  strong  a  tendency  to  form  self- 
independent  pictures  ;  yet  it  is  this  defect  which  forms 
the  chief  charm  of  his  one-acters.  It  is  true  that 
nearly    all    his    characters    are    Bohemian — artists, 


ARTHUR   SCHNITZLER  195 

flaneurs,  actresses,  journalists,  doctors,  painters — 
yet  each  author  creates,  as  of  right,  the  population 
of  his  own  individual  world  ;  and  is  it  not  rather  a 
claim  to  glory  to  have  attained  such  heights  of 
dramatic  celebrity  without  having  written  more  than 
one  single  play  specifically  devoted  to  fashionable 
life  ?  It  is  true  that  the  ethics  of  these  plays,  with 
their  chronic  and  inevitable  intrigues,  may  strike 
the  English  mind  as  somewhat  unusual  ;  yet  Schnitz- 
ler  enjoys  the  reputation  of  being  the  most  brilliant 
and  accurate  portrayer  of  contemporary  Viennese 
life.  It  is,  moreover,  in  the  nature  of  all  problem 
plays  .that  they  should  be  pieces  of  special  pleading, 
where  the  other  side  is  allowed  just  so  much  of 
a  hearing  as  will  not  permit  of  its  convincing.  After 
all,  from  the  standpoint  of  dramatic  art,  that  which 
counts  is  not  the  ethics,  but  the  presentation  of  the 
problem. 

Yet,  with  all  his  subtlety  and  all  his  problems,  he 
is  never  heavy.  Vienna  stands  intellectually  nearer 
to  Paris  than  to  Berlin,  so  that  the  Teutonic  intro- 
spection and  sentimentalism  are  touched  with  a 
Gallic  sprightliness  and  a  Gallic  grace.  No  dramatist 
has  written  tragedy  with  so  light  a  hand,  or  comedy 
with  so  ironically  pathetic  a  smile,  as  has  Arthur 
Schnitzler. 


£mile  verhaeren 

"  Mais  les  plus  exaltes  se  dirent  dans  leur  coeur, 
'  Partons  quand  meme  avec  notre  ame  inassouvie 
Puisque  la  force  et  que  la  vie 
Sont  au  dela  des  verites  et  des  erreurs.' " 

"  Vivre  c'est  prendre  et  donner  avec  Hesse. 
Toute  la  vie  est  dans  l'essor." 

The  above  principles,  prefixed  to  the  Forces  Tutnul- 
tueuses  of  Emile  Verhaeren,  are  well  fitted  to  supply 
the  key  to  a  man  who  both  in  thought  and  in  tech- 
nique is  indisputably  the  most  modern  and  the  most 
massive  force  in  the  whole  of  contemporary  European 
poetry.  For  Verhaeren  is  no  narrow  specialist  with 
an  outlook  limited  to  some  particular  sphere.  He  is 
the  singer  of  the  whole  fulness  of  modern  European 
life  as  a  whole,  with  its  clashes,  its  complexities,  its 
agonies  and  its  tensions,  its  deserted  country-sides  and 
its  pullulating  metropoles,  its  armaments  and  its  Arma- 
geddons,  its  brothels,  cathedrals,  laboratories  and 
Stock  Exchanges,  its  sciences  and  its  sensualities,  its 
arts,  philosophies  and  aspirations.  His  muse  is  no 
serene  nymph  piping  delicately  on  some  Parnassian 
slope,  but  an  extremely  tumultuous  Amazon,  at  once 
primeval,  and  ultra-modern,  chanting  the  paean  of 
battle,  steeped  in  the  wine  of  victory,  and  suckling  the 
supermen  of  the  future  on  her  universal  breasts.  No 
muse  in  the  whole  of  literature  is  more  highly  charged 
with  vitality,  and  no  reader  is  qualified  to  enjoy  her 
unless  he,  too,  is  charged  to  the  maximum  with  "  the 
red  tonic  liquor  of  a  harsh  and  formidable  reality." 

Let  us  then  glance  first  at  the  early  milieu  of  a 

m 


tiMILE    VERHAEREN  197 

man  who  combines  the  exultant  fury  of  the  lyric  with 
the  wide  outlook  of  the  cosmopolitan  sociologist, 
and  who  can  incidentally  beat  both  Baudelaire  and 
Wordsworth  at  their  own  respective  game. 

Verhaeren  was  born  on  the  21st  May  1855  at  St. 
Amand  in  Belgium,  one  of  the  most  strenuous  countries 
in  the  modern  world,  which,  it  is  interesting  to  re- 
member, holds  the  European  record  for  sensualism, 
alcoholism,  and  clericalism.  St.  Amand  is  situated 
on  the  broad  plains  of  the  Scheldt,  and  it  is  not  un- 
important to  lay  some  stress  on  the  Flemish  ancestry 
and  environment  of  a  man  who,  though  he  wrote  in 
the  French  language,  is  more  Germanic  than  Gallic 
in  his  temperament,  and  who  represents  in  the  sphere 
of  verse  perhaps  the  nearest  analogue  to  the  crass 
majesty  and  red  sensuality  of  Rubens.  His  early 
country  upbringing,  moreover,  is  responsible  for  that 
joie  de  vivre  in  the  fields,  and,  above  all,  the  wind, 
the  symbolisation  of  fury  and  rebellion  which  was  to 
inspire  those  nature  lyrics,  many  of  which  are  nearly 
as  great,  though  by  no  means  as  interesting,  as  his 
cosmic  and  metropolitan  poems. 

Verhaeren  was  originally  intended  for  the  priest- 
hood, and  was  educated  at  the  Jesuit  school  of  St. 
Barbe  in  Ghent,  where  he  had  for  his  schoolfellows 
such  men  as  Maeterlinck,  Van  Lenbergh,  and  Roden- 
bach.  Leaving  school,  he  went  to  Brussels,  where  he 
felt  "  his  multiplied  heart  grow  and  become  exalted  " 
with  the  roaring  intensity  of  metropolitan  life.  All 
thoughts  of  a  holy  life  were  now  abandoned,  and  in 
188 1  the  poet  was  called  to  the  Bar.  His  chief 
interests,  however,  were  literature,  Socialism,  and 
Brussels  life.  Joining  the  Young  Belgian  group  under 
the  leadership  of  Edmond  Picard,  he  became  a  fre- 
quent contributor  to  V Art  Moderne  and  La  Jcune 
Belgique.     Politically   he  was  a  Socialist,  associated 


198  MODERNITIES 

himself  with  the  Socialist  leader  Vandervelde,  and 
was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  philanthropic  Maison 
des  Peuples. 

But  it  was  in  the  poetic  representation  of  "  the 
monstrous  scenery  of  the  crass  Flemish  Kermesses  " 
(Les  Flamandsy  1883)  that  Verhaeren  gave  the 
first  vent  to  his  violent  virility.  In  this  work  a 
Rubensesque  and  Rabelaisian  subject-matter  is  treated 
with  poetic  exaltation  by  a  man  who  found  in  the 
great  national  festivals  of  past  and  present  Flanders, 
with 

"  Des  chocs  de  corps,  des  heurts  de  chair  et  des  bourrades, 
Des  lechements  subis  dans  un  etreignement," 

the  same  patriotic  inspiration  which  Mr.  G.  K.  Ches- 
terton has  discovered  in  that  beer  ;  into  which  he  has, 
as  it  were,  so  successfully  transubstantiated  the  whole 
national  spirit  of  our  English  body-politic.  Thus 
our  poet  wallows  defiantly  in  the  black  roughness  of 
his  Flemish  peasants : 

"  Les  voici  noirs,  grossiers,  bestiaux — ils  sont  tels," 

or  casts  regretful  glances  towards  the  healthier  gross- 
ness  of  the  artists  of  old  Flanders : 

"  Vos  pinceaux  ignoraient  le  fard, 
Les  indecences,  les  malices, 
Et  les  sous-entendus  de  vice 
Qui  clignent  l'ceil  dans  notre  art, 
Vos  femmes  suaient  la  sante", 
Rouge  de  sang  blanche  de  graisse, 
Elles  menaient  les  ruts  en  laisse 
Avec  des  airs  de  royaute." 

But  these  poems  are  far  more  than  mere  erotic  or 
gastronomic  diversions.  Somewhat  turgid,  no  doubt, 
with  red  health,  they  yet  possess  the  same  sweep  and 
the  same  impetus  with  which  Aristophanes  himself 
once  gave  expression  to  the  riotous  fecundity  of  the 
earth  and  the  Dionysian  forces  of  nature. 


tiMILE   VERHAEREN  199 

In  Les  Moines  (The  Monks,  1886),  Verhaeren  treats 
a  subject-matter  which  prima  facie  would  seem  to 
denote  the  abandonment  of  the  cult  of  the  flesh  for 
the  cult  of  the  spirit.  Yet  such  veneration  as  the 
poet  may  ever  have  possessed  for  the  Catholic  creed 
was  aesthetic  rather  than  religious.  He  penetrates, 
it  is  true,  into  the  "  enormous  shrine  where  the 
Middle  Ages  slumber,"  but  it  is  less  to  worship  than 
to  describe  in  a  rigid,  but  majestic  prosody  "  the 
grand  survivors  of  the  Christian  world  " — the 

"  Moines  venus  vers  nous  des  horizons  gothiques 
Mais  dont  Tame  mais  dont  l'esprit  meurt  de  demain." 

Psychologically  the  interesting  feature  of  this  work 
is  that,  so  far  from  being  in  any  way  obsessed 
by  any  Chestertonian  nostalgia  for  a  dead  and 
mediaeval  past,  the  poet  anticipates  with  all  apparent 
serenity  the  day  when  u  the  final  blasphemy  will 
have  transpierced  God  like  to  an  immense  sword." 
Even,  moreover,  in  these,  as  it  were,  antiquarian  de- 
scriptions the  poet  emphasizes  the  contrast  between 
the  visionary  life  of  the  cloister  (a  life,  albeit,  where 
occasionally 

"  Un  repas  colossal  souffle  fourneaux  beants 
Eructant  vers  l'azur  sa  flamme  et  sa  fumde  ") 

and  the  real  life  of  the  outside  world,  and  seems  by 
no  means  unsympathetic  to  the  rebellious  monk  who 
requires 

"  Le  ciel  torride  et  le  desert  et  l'air  des  monts 
Et  les  tentations  en  rut  des  vieux  demons 
Agacant  de  leurs  doigts  la  chair  enfle'e  des  gouges 
En  lui  briilant  la  levre  avec  de  grands  seins  rouges." 

Yet  both  Les  Flamands  and  Les  Moines  seem  quite 
innocent  and  playful  in  comparison  with  the  great 
black  trinity  of  Les  Soirs,  Les  Debacles,  and  Les 
Flambeaux  Noirs  (188 7-1 891),   in    which   Verhaeren 


200  MODERNITIES 

gave  expression  to  the  mental  and  physical  crisis 
which  for  a  time  seemed  to  imperil  both  his  life  and 
his  reason.  In  these  poems,  many  of  which  were 
written  in  London  and  its 

"  Gares  de  suie  et  de  fumee  ou  du  gaz  pleure 
Ses  spleens  d'argent  lointain  vers  des  chemins  d'eclair, 
Oil  des  betes  d'ennui  baillent  a  l'heure 
Dolente  immense'ment  qui  tinte  a  Westminster," 

Verhaeren  leaves  the  objective  mood  of  his  earlier 
poems  to  clothe  his  soul  in  the  Nessian  shirt  of  the 
most  poisonous  subjectivity.  But  true  tragic  dignity 
stalks  in  the  very  extremity  of  his  agony.  Compared, 
indeed,  with  the  gigantic  bass  of  this  unhappiness, 
black,  definite,  drastic,  what  is  the  grey  wistfulness 
of  Verlaine  but  the  hysterical  falsetto  of  a  whining 
child  ?  Verhaeren,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  ecstatic 
defiance  of  a  kind  of  Nietzschean  Prometheus  sets 
himself  to  plumb  the  lowest  abysses  of  despair,  and 
himself  eggs  on  the  eagles  of  torment  to  devour 
every  shred  of  his  own  soul.  With  "  brutal  teeth  of 
fire  and  madness  he  bites  and  outrages  his  own 
heart  within  him,"  lashes  himself  in  his  thought  and 
in  his  blood,  in  his  effort,  in  his  hope,  in  his 
blasphemy : 

"  Et  quand  leve  le  soir  son  calice  de  lie 
Je  me  le  verse  a  boire  insatiablement." 

Or  take  again  the  sinister  gusto  of  the  passage : 

"  Aurai-j'enfin  l'atroce  joie 
De  voir  nuits  apres  nuits  comme  une  proie 
La  demence  attaquer  mon  cerveau, 
Et  detraque,  malade,  sorti  de  la  prison 
Et  des  travaux  forces  de  sa  raison 
D'appareiller  vers  un  lointain  nouveau  ?  " 

The  technique  of  these  poems  is  worthy  of 
some  study.  Having  little  use  for  the  orthodox 
alexandrine  (except  in  a  few  instances  like  Le  Gel, 


tiMILE   VERHAEREN  201 

where  the  icy  massiveness  of  the  blocked  couplets 
faithfully  mirrors  the  polar  desolation  of  his  own 
soul),  he  fashions  his  own  metres  to  incarnate  his 
own  moods.  Such  a  refrain  as  "  Ce  minuit  dall6 
d'ennui "  will  boom  out  again  and  again  the  dull 
monotonous  clank  of  his  own  weary  spirit.  At  other 
times  the  grinding  engines  of  a  disorganised  mind 
whirr  and  jar  with  spasmodic  feverishness  : 

"  C'est  l'heure  ou  les  hallucine's, 
Les  gueux,  et  les  deracin£s 
Dressent  leur  orgueil  dans  la  vie." 

Note,  too,  the  ghastly  effectiveness  of  the  internal 
rhymes.     Is  not,  for  instance,  such  a  line  as 

"  Les  chiens  du  noir  espoir  ont  above  ce  soir  " 

a  triple  series,  as  it  were,  of  metrical  mirrors,  where 
the  bitten  mind  barks  savagely  back  at  its  own 
mad  image.  Or  listen  to  the  Titanic  thud  of  such 
a  line  as 

"  La  Mer  choque  ses  blocs  de  flots  contre  les  rocs," 

or  the  silent  smash  of 

"  Dites  suis-je  seul  avec  mon  ame, 
Mon  ame  helas  maison  d'dbene 
Ou  s'est  fendu  sans  bruit  un  soir 
Le  grand  miroir  de  mon  espoir  ?  " 

At  times  transcending  the  blank  negativity  of  despair, 
the  poet  will  coquet  positively  with  his  own  madness, 
as  he  wanders  "  hallucinated  in  the  forest  of  num- 
bers," or  wishes  to  march  towards  "  madness  and  her 
suns,  her  white  suns  of  moonlight  in  the  great  weird 
noon,  and  her  distant  echoes  bitten  by  dins  and  bark- 
ings and  full  of  vermilion  hounds."  Or  abandoning 
the  more  specific  formulation  of  his  own  emotions,  he 
will  give  vent  to  his  feelings  by  letting  his  brain  dance 
upon  the  lurid  boards  of  some  macabre  theme.  The 
little  poem,  La  Tite,  is  dank  with  all  the  smooth  bloodi- 


202  MODERNITIES 

ness  of  the  guillotine,  while  the  Dame  en  Noir,  with  the 
ghastly  rhymes  and  assurances  of  its  refrain,  is  swathed 
in  a  black  pathos,  in  comparison  with  which  the  most 
lurid  horrors  of  Baudelaire  appear  the  mere  artificial 
extravagances  of  a  perverse  mind. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  blackness  of  the 
trilogy  which  we  have  just  considered  was  no  mere 
dabbling  in  morbidity,  but  the  genuine  expression  of 
a  genuine  unhappiness.  In,  however,  Les  Apparus 
dans  Mes  Chemins,  Les  Vignes  de  Ma  Muraille  the 
storm  gradually  exhausts  itself,  and  is  replaced  by 
a  more  serene  and  confident  mood.  Contrast,  for 
instance,  with  the  drastic  violence  of  Les  Debacles  the 
jaded  weariness  of  such  a  lyric  as  Celui  de  la  Fatigue, 
where  the  poet  sings  of  an  "  ardour  broken  on 
the  whirling  staircase  of  the  infinite,"  or  of  such 
a  passage  as 

"  Je  m'habille  des  loques  de  mes  jours 
Et  le  baton  de  mon  orgueil  il  plie, 
Mes  pieds  dites  comme  ils  sont  lourds 
De  me  porter  de  me  trainer  toujours 
Au  long  de  siecle  de  ma  vie." 

And  as  a  complete  antithesis,  again,  to  the  black 
bloodiness  of  such  poems  as  La  Tete  or  Un  Meurtre, 
take  the  white  suavity  of  Si.  Georges  : 

"  II  vient  un  bel  ambassadeur 
Du  pays  blanc  illumine"  de  marbres 
Oii  dans  les  pares  au  bords  des  mers  sur  Parbre 
De  la  bonte  suavement  croit  la  douceur." 

But  this  serenity  marked  rather  a  respite  in  Ver- 
haeren's  development  than  a  real  abatement  of  his 
poetic  fury.  With  the  furnaces  of  his  mind  re- 
charged to  their  maximum  capacity  with  blazing 
health,  he  starts  to  race  his  muse  over  the  main  lines 
of  the  modern  civilisation,  which  lead  from  The 
Hallucinated  Country-sides    to    The    Tentacular    Towns. 


fiMILE   VERHAEREN  203 

Though  written  at  different  times,  these  two  sets  of 
poems  constitute  the  contrasting  halves  of  a  complete 
whole,  and  were  published  together  in  1895  with 
two  prologues,  La  Ville  and  La  Plaine.  The  prologues, 
in  particular,  well  illustrate  the  new  rushing  irregular 
prosody,  specially  forged  for  the  purpose  of  hammer- 
ing out  that  white-hot  steel  of  the  modern  civilisation 
which  enmeshes  in  its  fabric  all  the  helpless  flotsam 
of  the  agricultural  economy.  The  academic  harmony 
of  the  alexandrine  is  here  abandoned.  The  rhymes 
crash  out  at  lesser  and  greater  intervals  as  they 
march  along  on  feet  that  range  from  the  quick  spasm 
of  some  dissyllabic  line  to  the  spondaic  emphasis  of 
a  full-length  alexandrine. 

In  Les  Campagnes  Hallucines  itself  the  prosody  is  no 
doubt  simpler,  as  the  poet  describes  the  ruined  and 
pestilential  country  with  its  fevers,  its  sins,  its 
beggars,  its  pilgrims,  its  diseases,  insanities  and  de- 
bauches, and  the  immense  monotony  of  its  intermin- 
able plains. 

"  C'est  la  plaine,  la  plaine  bleme 
Interminablement  toujours  la  meme, 

Par  au-dessus,  souvent 

Rage  si  forte  le  vent, 
Que  Ton  dirait  le  ciel  fendu 

Au  coup  de  boxe 

De  l'equinoxe ; 
Novembre  hurle  ainsi  qu'un  loup 
Lamentable  par  le  soir  fou." 

Perhaps,  however,  the  most  sinister  poems  in  Les 
Campagnes  are  the  Chansons  de  Fou,  with  their  naif 
absurdities  and  their  intuitive  reason,  where  the 
rhymes  laugh  and  clatter  like  rows  of  grinning  teeth, 
and  the  almost  Dureresque  Le  Fleau,  from  its 
exordium, 

"  La  Mort  a  bu  du  sang 
Au  carbaret  des  Trois  Cercueils 


204  MODERNITIES 

La  Mort  a  mis  sur  le  comptoir 

Un  6cu  noir, 

'  C'est  pour  les  cierges,  pour  les  deuils,' " 

down  to  its  ghastly  climax, 

"  Et  les  foules  suivaient  vers  n'importent  ou, 
Le  grand  squelette  aimable  et  soul 
Qui  trimballait  sur  son  cheval  bonhomme 
L'^pouvante  de  sa  personne, 
Jusqu'aux  lointains  de  peur  et  de  panique, 
Sans  6prouver  1'horreur  de  son  odeur, 
Ni  voir  danser,  sous  un  repli  de  sa  tunique, 
Le  trousseau  de  vers  blancs  qui  lui  tetaient  le  cceur." 

The  final  significance  of  Les  Campagnes  lies  in  its 
last  poem,  Le  D&part,  describing  the  desertion  by 
the  whole  country-side  of  that  dead  mournful  plain 
which  is  being  eaten  up  by  the  town. 

"  Tandis  qu'au  loin  la-bas 
Sous  les  cieux  lourds  fuligineux  et  gras, 
Avec  son  front  comme  un  Thabor, 
Avec  ses  sucoirs  noirs  et  ses  rouges  haleines 
Hallucinant  et  attirant  les  gens  des  plaines, 
C'est  la  ville  que  le  jour  plombe  et  que  la  nuit  eclaire 
La  ville  en  platre,  en  stuc,  en  bois,  en  marbre,  en  fer,  en  or — 
Tentaculaire." 

It  is,  however,  in  Les  Villes  Tentaculaires,  where  the 
fever  and  indefatigable  aspiration  of  the  town  are 
described  with  a  Zolaesque  exaltation,  that  the 
originality  of  the  departure  initiated  by  Verhaeren  is 
more  specifically  manifested.  For  he  now  boldly 
stalks  forward  as  the  pioneer  realist  in  European 
poetry.  Disregarding  alike  the  orthodox  subject- 
matter  and  the  orthodox  terminology  of  official 
poesy,  he  seeks  and  finds  his  inspiration  in  the  vast 
forces  at  work  in  actual  modern  life.  The  realism  of 
Verhaeren,  in  somewhat  pointed  contrast  to  the  realism 
of  some  of  our  own  patriotic  or  fashionable  poets,  even 
though  such  expressions  as  "  cabs  "  and  "  steamers  " 
are  to  be  found  in  his  work  in  the  original  English, 


fiMlLE   VERHAEREN  205 

depends  for  its  aesthetic  value  neither  on  the  swing  of  its 
slang  nor  the  egregiousness  of  its  expletives.  The  hot 
blast  of  his  sincerity  sweeps  away  at  once  any  impeach- 
mentof  mere  dabbling  in  the  ultra-modern.  His  diction 
is  frequently  brusque,  and  even  red,  if  we  may  borrow 
his  favourite  colour, if  not  his  favourite  adjective ;  yet  it 
never  loses  the  dignity  of  authentic  poetry.  For  the 
poet  would  seem  to  have  been  personally  susceptible, 
in  the  highest  degree,  to  that  peculiar  multiplication 
of  vitality  and  intensification  of  emotion  which  is  the 
essential  effect  produced  by  big  metropoles  upon 
certain  temperaments.  And  this  cerebral  ecstasy  is 
increased  by  the  consciousness  of  being  on  the 
threshold  of  a  new  age,  "  for  the  ancient  dream  is 
dead,  and  the  new  one  is  now  being  forged."  Thus 
the  poet  will  wander  into  The  Cathedrals,  take  pity  on 
the  multitudinous  misery  of  the  praying  hordes,  and 
boom  out  again  and  again  the  refrain  : 

"  O  ces  foules,  ces  foules 
Et  la  misere  et  la  detresse  qui  les  foulent." 

But  note  the  sociological  symbolism  of  the  climax : 

"  Et  les  vitraux  grands  de  siecles  agenouilles 
Devant  le  Christ  avec  leurs  papes  immobiles 
Et  leurs  martyrs  et  leurs  he'ros  semblent  trembler 
Au  bruit  d'un  train  lointain  qui  roule  sur  la  ville." 

For  refusing  to  bear  the  cross  of  Gothic  ideas,  the 
poet  plunges  deliberately  into  the  inferno  of  modern 
life.  And  each  fresh  circle  but  kindles  his  ardour 
and  inflames  his  Muse.  For  he  will  pass  with  grow- 
ing exaltation  from  the  muscled  teeming  life  of  the 
port  to  the  garish  ballet  of  a  music  hall  where 

"  Des  bataillons  de  chair  et  de  cuisses  en  marche 
Grouillent  sur  des  rampes  ou  sous  des  arches, 
Jambes,  hanches,  gorges,  maillots,  jupes,  dentelles," 

and  then,  as  midnight  strikes  and   the  crowd  ebbs 


206  MODERNITIES 

away,  he  will  stalk  into  the  "  brilliant  chemical  atmos- 
phere "  where 

"  Au  long  de  promenoirs  qui  s'ouvrent  sur  la  nuit 
— Balcons  de  fleurs,  rampes  de  flammes — 
Des  femmes  en  deuil  de  leur  ame 
Entrecroisent  leurs  pas  sans  bruit." 

Nor  does  the  poet  disdain  the  grinding  factories 
where 

"  Entre  des  murs  de  fer  et  pierre 

Soudainement  se  leve  altiere 

La  force  en  rut  de  la  matiere," 

or  even  the  Bourse  itself,  where  he  sings  in  feverish 
staccato  rhythm  the 

"  Langues  seches,  regards  aigus,  gestes  inverses, 
Et  cervelles  qu'en  tourbillons  les  millions  traversent." 

But  it  is  typical  of  Verhaeren's  essential  optimism  that 
after  describing  with  Zolaesque  detail  both  a  strike 
and  a  u  shop  of  luxury,"  he  should  find  the  ransom 
of  the  future  in 

"  La  maison  de  la  science  au  loin  dardee 
Obstinement  par  a  travers  les  faits  jusqu'aux  id6es." 

In  Les  Heures  Claires  (1896)  the  drastic  violence  of  Les 
Villes  Tentaculaires  abates  for  the  time  being  into  a 
mood  of  resigned,  but  yet  robust  melancholy,  which 
immortalises  the  sweetness,  deepness,  and  softness  of 
the  poet's  love  for  his  wife. 

In  Les  Forces  Tumultueuses,  however,  the  poet  has 
got  once  again  into  the  full  swing  of  his  drastic  stride. 
The  mood  is  to  some  extent  the  same  as  that  of  Les 
Villes  Tentaculaires,  though  the  Zolaesque  concreteness 
of  detail  is  merged  in  the  broadness  of  a  genuine 
Lucretian  sweep.  The  book  consists  of  a  series  of 
lyrical  poems,  lyrical,  albeit,  in  the  sense  rather 
of  Pindar  than  of  Herrick,  which  exalt  the  various 


£mile  VERHAEREN  207 

phases  of  human  energy.     Thus  in  the  poem,  VArt, 
Verhaeren  soars  upwards  with  a  tremendous  rush  : 

"  D'un  bond 
Son  pied  cassant  le  sol  profond 
Son  double  aile  dans  la  lumiere 
Le  coil  tendu,  le  feu  sous  les  paupieres 
Partit,  vers  le  soleil  et  vers  l'extase, 
Ce  devoreur  d'espace  et  de  splendeur  Pegase." 

In  Les  MaUres  the  poet  describes  the  various  types 
of  superman,  from  "  the  monk  "  of  the  Middle  Ages 
to  the  banker  of  the  twentieth  century,  who  dominates 
the  world  as  he  "  binds  sinister  destiny  to  his  bour- 
geois will,"  and  sows  in  the  distance  his  winged  gold. 

"  Son  or  aile  qui  s'enivre  d'espace, 
Son  or  planant,  son  or  rapace, 
Son  or  vivant, 

Son  or  dont  s'eclairent  et  rayonnent  les  vents, 
Son  or  qui  boit  la  terre 
Par  les  pores  de  son  misere 
Son  or  ardent,  son  or  furtif,  son  or  retors. 
Morceau  d'espoir  et  de  soleil — son  or  ! " 

Some  mention  must  also  be  made  of  the  poem,  Les 
Femmes,  which,  subdivided  into  L'£lernelle,  L'Amante, 
L'Amazone,  ranks  in  our  view  as  the  greatest  sex  poem 
of  the  century.  In  contrast,  for  instance,  with 
Swinburne,  who  treats  sex  rather  as  a  thing  of  beauty 
and  of  pleasure  than  as  an  underlying  world-force,  and 
who  has  both  the  advantage  and  the  disadvantage  of 
the  specifically  classical  conception  of  life,  Verhaeren, 
whether  he  rings  his  changes  in  L'Amante  on  the  soft 
refrain,  "Mon  reve  est  embarqu6  dans  une  ile  flot- 
tante,"  shows  in  L'Amazone  that  the  New  Woman  can 
be  something  considerably  more  poetic  than  a  Strind- 
bergian  monstrosity,  or  sings  in  Ufcternelle  her  "  who 
thinks  she  encloses  the  whole  world  within  her  flesh," 
will  boom  out  again  and  again  the  cosmic  and  uni- 
versal peal.     The  verse  throughout  is  as  beautiful  as 


208  MODERNITIES 

can  be  desired.  But  it  has  something  more  than 
beauty  ;  it  has  stature,  majesty,  speed,  force,  that 
exaltation  of  reality  which  is  the  essence  of  the  highest 
poetry. 

In  the  poems,  La  Science,  L'Erreur,  La  Folie,  Les 
Cultes,  Verhaeren  proceeds  to  formulate  his  own  philo- 
sophy of  life,  and  his  prophetic  enthusiasm  for  the 
new  modern  truths,  under  whose  clear  feet  the  old 
texts  have  crumbled,  as  he  expounds 

"  Comment  la  vie  est  une  a  travers  tous  les  &tres 
Qu'ils  soient  matiere  instruit  esprit  ou  volonte" 
ForSt  myriadaire  et  rouge  ou  s'enchevetrent 
Les  debordements  fous  de  la  feconditeV' 

Put  shortly,  his  philosophy  is  a  compound  of  those 
of  Nietzsche  and  of  Bergson.  His  soul,  no  doubt, 
swings  in  unison  with  the  universal  rhythm  of  the 
world,  but,  like  Nietzsche,  he  finds  in  force  and  life 
realities  transcending  all  errors,  and  after  a  historic 
survey  of  the  more  popular  deities  of  humanity  from 
Gog  to  Jehovah,  and  from  Satan  to  Christ,  enunciates 
his  belief  in  humanity  in  stanzas  of  sublime  blasphemy, 
far  more  truly  religious  than  the  ambiguous  scrolls 
and  rubrics  of  any  antiquarian  creed : 

"  L'homme  respire  et  sur  la  terre  il  marche,  seul. 
II  vit  pour  s'exalter  du  monde  et  de  lui-meme, 
Sa  langue  oublie  et  la  priere  et  le  blaspheme  ; 
Ses  pieds  foulent  le  drap  de  son  ancien  linceul. 
II  est  l'heureuse  audace  au  lieu  d'etre  la  crainte  ; 
Tout  l'infini  ne  retentit  que  de  ses  bonds 
Vers  l'avenir  plus  doux,  plus  clair  et  plus  fe'conds 
Dont  s'aggrave  le  chant  et  s'alentit  la  plainte. 
Penser,  chercher,  et  decouvrir  sont  ses  exploits. 
II  emplit  jusqu'aux  bords  son  existence  breve  ; 
II  n'enfle  aucun  espoir,  il  ne  fausse  aucun  reve, 
Et  s'il  lui  faut  des  Dieux  encore — qu'il  les  soit ! " 

In  La  Multiple  Splendeur  and  Les  Visages  de  la  Vie 
the  same  insatiable  gusto  for  an  infinitude  of  life  darts 


EMILE   VERHAEREN  209 

again  and  again  its  red  tongue.  It  is  impossible  by 
mere  quotation  to  do  justice  to  the  full  vastness  of 
Verhaeren's  lyric  sweep.  We  would,  however,  at 
any  rate,  refer  to  the  majesty  of  Le  Monde  with  its 
combined  crash  and  concord  of  incessant  life  and  the 
Cyclopean  weight  of  the  adamantine  line  which  but- 
tresses at  either  end  the  flaming  rivers  of  its  verse, 

*  Le  monde  est  fait  avec  des  astres  et  des  hommes," 
or  to  the  sublimity  of  Les  Penseurs  in  which  the  poet 
tells  how 

"  Autour  de  la  terre  obsedee 
Circule  au  fond  des  nuits,  au  coeur  des  jours 
Toujours 
L'orage  amoncele"  des  id^es," 

and  how 

"  Descarte  et  Spinoza,  Liebnitz,  Kant  et  Hegel " 
"  fixed  the  highest  pinnacles  of  inaccessible  problems 
for  the  goal  of  their  silver  arrows,  and  carried  within 
themselves  the  grand  obstinate  dream  of  one  day, 
imprisoning  eternity  in  the  white  ice  of  immobile 
truth." 

The  very  names,  too,  of  some  of  the  poems  may 
possibly  reflect  some  of  the  facets  of  their  multiplied 
splendour  :  Le  Verbe,  Les  Vieux  Empires,  La  Louange 
du  Corps  Humain,  A  la  Gloire  des  Cieux,  A  la  Gloire 
du  Vent,  Les  Reves,  L' Europe,  La  Conquete,  Les  Souf- 
f ranees,  La  Joie,  La  Ferveur,  Les  Ide'es,  La  Vie,  L' Effort, 
L' Action,  Plus  Loin  que  les  Gares,  Le  Soir.  And  again 
and  again  rings  out  in  various  keys  the  true 
Nietzschean  note.  For  "vast  hopes  come  from  the 
unknown  "  has  displaced  the  ancient  balance  whereof 
souls  are  now  tired.     But  the  only  reality  is  life  : 

"  La  vie  en  cris  ou  en  silence, 
La  vie  en  lutte  ou  en  accord 
Avec  la  vie  avec  la  mort 
La  vie  apre,  la  vie  intense, 

O 


210  MODERNITIES 

Elle  est  ici  dans  la  fureur  ou  dans  la  haine 
De  l'ascendant  et  rouge  ardeur  humaine." 

It  is  fine  proof  also  of  the  vast  vitality  of  Verhaeren 
that  even  in  so  recent  a  work  as  Les  Rhythmes 
Souveraines  the  muscled  majesty  of  his  verse,  though 
possibly  a  trifle  less  violent,  shows  no  abatement  of 
its  essential  strength.  We  would  mention  in  par- 
ticular the  poems  Michel  Ange,  Chant  d'Hercule,  Les 
Barbares  with  the  swift  crispness  of  its  one-foot  lines, 
and  above  all  Le  Paradis  with  its  almost  Miltonic 
picture  of 

"  L'archange  endormant  Eve  au  creux  de  sa  grande  aile." 

But  does  not  Verhaeren  transcend  Milton  in  the 
wideness  of  his  humanity  when  he  describes  not  with 
regret  but  with  the  maximum  of  exalted  exultation 
how 

u  Eve  bondit  soudain  hors  de  son  aile  immense, 
Oh  l'heureuse  subite  et  fdconde  demence, 
Que  l'ange  avec  son  coeur  trop  pur  ne  comprit  pas." 

In  his  latest  volume,  Les  Ble's  Mouvants,  Verhaeren 
sinks  back  no  doubt  to  a  quieter  and  serener  mood, 
but  who  shall  say  that  these  eclogues  do  not  simply 
represent  the  sage  crouch  for  another  leonine  spring  ? 

We  do  not  propose  to  make  more  than  a  passing 
reference  to  Verhaeren's  plays,  for  it  is  the  lyric 
rather  than  the  drama  which  is  his  true  medium  of 
expression. 

He'lene  de  Sparte,  with  all  its  graceful  Alexandrines, 
is  inferior  to  any  play  by  D'Annunzio,  and  even  the 
socialist  drama  Les  Aubes  is,  notwithstanding  the  fine 
verses  with  which  it  is  sown,  simply  stiff  and  heavy 
when  compared  with  Hauptmann's  Weavers.  It  is  by 
his  lyrics  that  Verhaeren  lives,  and  will  continue  to 
live  beyond  his  mere  death  whenever  it  comes,  as 
the  greatest  and  most  essentially  European  poet  of 


EMILE   VERHAEREN  211 

our  new  age.  For  his  lyrics  are  equally  great,  both 
in  their  message  and  the  method  of  their  expression. 
Disdaining  alike  the  cowardice  and  the  perversity  of 
those  who,  refusing  to  face  the  red  realities  of  the 
present  century,  fly  for  their  comfort  to  the  pale 
shadows  of  the  Middle  Ages,  Verhaeren  has  plunged 
boldly  into  the  very  brazier  of  our  modern  existence. 
He  affirms,  he  combats,  he  prophesies,  but  he  rarely, 
if  ever,  rests.  He  hymns  every  phase  of  life,  from 
the  human  brain  to  the  human  body,  and  from  the 
winds  and  seas  of  nature  to  the  towns  and  marts  of 
man.  And  no  message  is  more  virile,  more  tonic, 
more  essentially  healthy,  for  is  not  his  message  the 
phoenix  of  a  new  humanitarian  faith  soaring  aloft  on 
its  fiery  wings  out  of  the  corpses  of  the  decomposing 
dogmas  ?  And  his  prosody  has  the  supreme  ex- 
cellence that  it  is  not  a  mere  aesthetic  end  in  itself, 
but  a  drastic  instrument  of  expression.  Your  pure 
aesthete,  no  doubt,  may  cavil  at  his  ruggedness.  For 
he  is  the  Rodin  of  poetical  rhyme,  the  veritable 
Vulcan  of  verse,  or  rather  a  Siegfried  forging  the 
sword  of  the  future  on  the  anvil  of  the  present,  as 
he  drives  in  the  stubborn  nails  of  his  nouns  with 
the  hissing  hammers  of  his  adjectives.  His  lines  no 
doubt  at  times  will  growl,  grind  and  boom,  hit  the 
reader  in  the  face  with  all  the  force  of  a  clenched 
fist,  and  palpitate  with  a  full-bloodedness  somewhat 
overpowering  for  the  jaded  and  the  anaemic.  But 
is  not  this  the  very  seal  of  success  in  a  man  who 
specifically  sets  himself  to  sing  not  the  mere  beauty 
of  beauty,  but  the  beauty  of  force,  the  beauty  of 
life,  "  life  violent,  prodigious,  unsatiated,  the  universal 
spasm  of  all  things  "  ? 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM 

"  Repose-toi !  .  .  .  Repose-toi !  .  .  .  il  n'est[doux  que  dormir  !  .  .  . 

Non,  la  vie  est  a  bruler  comme  un  falot  de  paille, 

II  faut  l'ingurgiter  d'une  lampee  hardie, 

Tels  ces  jongleurs  de  foire  qui  vont  mangeant  du  feu 

D'un  coup  de  langue,  escamotant  la  Mort  dans  l'estomac." 

The  above  quotation  from  M.  Marinetti's  poem, 
Le  Demon  de  la  Vitesse,  is  well  adapted  to  give  some 
idea  of  the  feverish  but  sustained  energy  of  those 
pictures  whose  recent  exhibition  in  the  Sackville 
Gallery  so  successfully  scandalised  not  only  the 
doyens  of  the  Royal  Academy  but  even  the  official 
champions  of  all  that  is  new  and  progressive  in  our 
modern  English  art.  But  for  a  correct  appreciation 
even  of  the  Futurist  pictures  themselves,  it  is  essential 
to  realise  that,  so  far  from  being  the  mere  isolated 
extravagances  and  tours  de  force  of  a  new  technique, 
they  constitute  an  integral  part  of  a  living  scheme, 
which  with  all  its  lavish  use  of  the  most  ostentatious 
hyperbolism,  has  yet  claims  to  be  seriously  con- 
sidered as  a  substantial  movement,  artistic,  literary, 
economic,  sociological,  and  above  all  human. 

Let  us  then  make  some  scrutiny  of  this  "  Rising 
City  "  of  Futurism,  as  it  rears  with  such  vehement 
exaltation  from  out  the  trampled  debris  of  a  super- 
seded and  dishonoured  past.  For  this  purpose, 
having  first  examined  those  conditions  of  contem- 
porary Italy  which  more  immediately  provoked  this 
u  Red  Rebellion,"  we  shall  proceed  to  some  analysis 
of  the  general  character    of   the  movement  and  of 

212 


THE   FUTURE   OF  FUTURISM    213 

the  aggressive  and  sensational  works  of  M.  Marinetti 
himself,  the  audacious  Mercury  of  this  new  message. 

The  direct  cause  of  the  Futurist  movement  is  to 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  that  modern  current  of 
electric  energy,  which  has  been  galvanising  the 
states  of  Northern  and  Central  Europe  to  a  more 
and  more  strenuous  and  a  more  and  more  complicated 
activity  has,  so  far  as  Italy  is  concerned,  not  suc- 
ceeded in  flowing  further  south  than  Milan.  In 
this  connection  it  is  not  without  its  significance  that, 
while  Milan  is  indubitably  the  vital  and  commercial 
capital  of  the  peninsula,  the  official  capital  should 
be  merely  Rome,  aureoled  with  its  hybrid  halo  of 
majesty  and  malaria,  the  centre  of  the  tourist,  the 
archaeologist,  and  the  Papacy,  that  august  shadow 
of  a  once  living  empire. 

Even,  moreover,  the  great  heroes  of  the  Risorgimento 
Italianoy  the  euphonious  title  by  which  Italians  desig- 
nate the  unification  of  their  country,  suffered  from 
an  undue  obsession  with  the  democratic  ideals  of 
a  mediaeval  past.  Dissipating  their  energy  in  rushing 
reams  of  republican  rhetoric  or  the  purple  pomp 
of  patriotic  platitudes,  they  remained  sublimely 
oblivious  to  the  crying  economic  needs  of  a  country 
which,  with  all  its  natural  richness  and  all  its 
natural  genius,  still,  so  far  as  general  material  and 
intellectual  progress  is  concerned,  lags  no  incon- 
siderable distance  behind  the  increasingly  quick 
march  of  the  European  civilisation.  Nor  did  matters 
improve  when  the  regime  of  the  naif  idealists  was 
succeeded  by  that  of  the  opportunist  bureaucracy 
which  has  since  governed  Italy.  A  vast  portion  of 
the  country  still  remains  unforested,  uncultivated, 
unirrigated,  and  above  all  uneducated.  The  taint 
of  malaria  still  infects  wide  tracts  of  land,  which 
with   proper  treatment   might  have  been  profitably 


214  MODERNITIES 

developed  by  those  masses  of  sturdy  labourers  who 
have  emigrated  to  America  with  an  almost  Irish 
eagerness.  Indeed  with  all  respect  to  M.  Marinetti, 
who  has  himself  fought  in  the  Tripolitan  trenches, 
the  Italo-Turkish  war  was  occasioned  (if  we  can  rely 
on  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  responsible  of  the 
Parisian  reviews)  not  so  much  by  a  bond  fide  desire 
to  find  a  place  in  the  sun  for  the  not  yet  surplus 
population  of  a  not  yet  fully  developed  country, 
as  by  an  indisputably  authentic  ambition  to  find 
a  lucrative  outlet  for  the  money  of  the  clique  of 
clerical  capitalists  who  control  the  Bank  of  Rome. 
So  far,  however,  as  no  inconsiderable  portion  of 
Italy  itself  is  concerned,  we  are  confronted  with  a 
country  of  museums,  ruins,  and  ciceroni  which, 
exploiting  the  Fremdeninduslrie  after  the  manner  of 
some  more  perverse  and  inexcusable  Switzerland, 
prostitutes  with  venal  ostentation  the  faded  beauties 
of  its  undoubtedly  glorious  past  to  the  complete 
ruin  of  its  only  potentially  splendid  present. 

A  certain  pseudo-Nietzscheanism  has  no  doubt 
been  introduced  into  Italy  beneath  the  auspices  of 
D'Annunzio.  Yet,  with  all  his  fanfaronnade  of  tense 
and  exuberant  virility,  the  atmosphere  of  D'Annunzio 
is,  speaking  broadly,  moistly  rank  and  exotically 
enervating.  With  the  possible  exception  of  his  latest 
novel,  his  heroes  are  languidly  feverish  dilettantes 
whose  lives  are  principally  devoted  to  the  literary 
and  aesthetic  cultivation  of  all  the  neurotic  luxuriance 
of  their  own  erotic  morbidities.  This  brings  us  to 
the  important  sociological  fact  of  that  rigid  obsession 
with  sex,  as  the  one  paramount  emotional,  artistic,  and 
vital  value  which,  sapping  the  manhood  not  only  of 
Italy  but  also  indeed  of  France,  tends  to  corrupt 
the  whole  social,  political,  and  economic  life  of  the 
two  nations. 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     215 

It  is  this  exaggerated  preoccupation  with  the  sexual 
aspect  of  life  which  has  produced,  by  way  of  a 
vehement  but  deliberate  riposte,  the  important  Futurist 
maxim,  "  M6prisez  la  femme."  With  an  enthusiasm  in 
fact  almost  worthy  of  our  own  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association,  these  comparative  Hippolyti  of  a  young 
mother-country,  only  recently  wedded  in  the  bonds 
of  political  union,  flaunt  themselves  as  the  unscrupu- 
lous iconoclasts  of  such  firmly  established  national 
ideals  as  u  the  glorious  conception  of  Don  Juan  and 
the  grotesque  conception  of  the  cocu."  Thus  the 
Futurists  would  banish  the  nude  from  painting  and 
adultery  from  the  novel,  so  that  they  may  be  able  to 
substitute  the  sublime  male  fury  of  creation  of  artistic 
and  scientific  masterpieces  for  all  the  sterile  embraces 
of  hedonistic  eroticism,  and,  like  some  gallant  band 
of  twentieth-century  Hercules,  cleanse  the  Augean 
stables  of  the  Latin  civilisation  of  its  vast  surplus  of 
malignant  mud  vomited  forth  by  that  stewing  and  pes- 
tiferous swamp  of  sex.  As  an  antidote  to  that  virulent 
plague  of  luxurious  and  diseased  sexuality,  which  it 
is  their  self-imposed  mission  to  eradicate,  they  pen  the 
drastic  prescription  of  "  patriotism  and  war,  the  only 
hygiene  of  the  world."  So  hot  indeed  is  the  ardour 
of  these  militant  apostles  of  a  new  Latin  civilisation, 
that  they  once  incurred  the  displeasure  of  established 
authority  by  insisting  on  a  war  with  Austria  with 
such  a  maxim  of  vehemence  that  an  Austrian  journal 
actually  demanded  the  intervention  of  the  Italian 
Government. 

And  whether  this  policy  indicates  the  mere  tetanic 
spasms  of  a  delirious  Chauvinism,  or  the  lucid  vision 
of  an  inspired  if  heretical  diplomacy,  it  is  certainly 
symptomatic  of  a  tense,  combative,  and  drastic  energy 
which  is,  in  the  deepest  sense  of  the  word,  essentially 
Nietzschean.     In  this  connection  the  attitude  of  the 


216  MODERNITIES 

Futurists  towards  Nietzsche  is  instructive.  They 
have  read  his  books,  thrilled  to  his  magic,  and  yet 
they  repudiate  him.  For  they  cavil,  and  not  alto- 
gether unreasonably,  at  the  bigoted  and  hide-bound 
dualism  of  Nietzsche's  political  philosophy,  and  his 
obstinate  and  obsolete  division  of  the  political  world 
into  the  divine  spirit  of  a  few  strong  geniuses  and  the 
brute  matter  of  a  weak  and  numerous  proletariate. 

Yet,  taking  the  matter  in  its  broad  lines, 
M.  Marinetti's  programme  for  "  the  indefinite  physio- 
logical and  intellectual  progress  of  man "  expresses 
admirably  the  whole  theory  of  the  Nietzschean 
Superman.  Nietzschean  also  are  such  phrases  as, 
"  the  type  inhuman,  mechanical,  cruel,  omniscient 
and  combative,"  or  a  the  multiplied  man  who  mingles 
with  iron,  nourishes  himself  on  electricity,  and  only 
appreciates  the  delight  of  the  danger  and  of  the 
heroism  of  every  single  day."  The  real  distinction 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  Futurist  Superman  is  more 
practical,  more  concrete,  more  up-to-date,  and,  above 
all,  infinitely  less  dreamy  than  his  elder  and  more 
pedantic  brother. 

And  in  spite  of  M.  Marinetti's  analysis  of  Nietzs- 
cheanism  as  nothing  but  the  artificial  resurrection 
of  a  dead  and  past  antiquity,  the  two  ideals  are 
harmonious  in  their  denunciation  of  the  facile  and 
automatic  reverence  for  "  the  good  old  days,"  and 
their  savage  exhortation  to  "  sweep  away  the  grey 
cinders  of  the  Past  with  the  incandescent  lava  of  the 
Future." 

This  announcement  of  a  virile  desire  to  improve 
and  improve  and  improve,  not  only  on  the  past  but 
also  on  the  present,  constitutes  the  principal  mark  in 
the  Futurist  platform.  Hence  the  leaders  of  the 
movement  have  coined  the  two  words  passeisme,  the 
object  of  their  onslaught,  and  Futurism,  the  watch- 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     217 

word  of  their  faith.  And  truculently  pushing  their 
theories  to  the  extreme  limit  of  extravagant  logic, 
M.  Marinetti  and  his  brothers  in  arms  exhorted  the 
assembled  Venetians,  in  the  200,000  multicoloured 
manifestos  which  on  a  certain  memorable  day  they 
flung  down  into  the  Piazza  San  Marco,  "  to  cure  and 
cicatrize  this  rotting  town,  magnificent  wound  of  the 
Past,  and  to  hasten  to  fill  its  small  foetid  canals  with 
the  ruins  of  its  tumbling,  leprous  palaces."  But  the 
remedy  is  constructive  as  well  as  destructive. 

"  Burn  the  gondolas,  those  swings  for  fools,  and 
erect  up  to  the  sky  the  rigid  geometry  of  large 
metallic  bridges  and  factories  with  waving  hair  of 
smoke  ;  abolish  everywhere  the  languishing  curve  of 
the  old  architecture." 

We  see  at  once  how,  in  this  more  than  Wellsian 
enthusiasm  for  all  the  romantic  possibilities  of  a 
scientific  civilisation,  they  declare  the  most  sanguin- 
ary war  a  toutrance  with  that  Ruskinian  and  Pre- 
Raphaelite  sentimentalism  which,  sublimely  burying 
its  mediaeval  head  in  the  immemorial  sands  of  a 
crumbling  past,  is  somewhat  ill-adapted  to  confront 
the  onrushing  simoon  of  an  increasingly  definite  and 
formidable  future.  And  with  the  deliberate  object  of 
emphasizing  his  point  with  the  maximum  of  provo- 
cative aggressiveness,  the  Futurist  will  fling  at  his 
enemies  the  insolent  paradox  that  a  motor-car  in 
motion  has  a  higher  aesthetic  value  than  the  Victory 
of  Samothrace,  or  announce  with  theatrical  solemnity 
that  the  pain  of  a  man  is  just  about  as  interesting  in 
their  eyes  as  the  pain  of  an  electric  lamp,  suffering  in 
convulsive  spasms  and  crying  out  with  the  most 
agonising  effects  of  colour. 

Yet  if  we  strip  this  new  u  beauty  of  mechanism  " 
and  "  aesthetic  of  speed  "  of  its  loud  garb  of  ostentatious 
extravagance,  the  intrinsic  theories  themselves  strike 


218  MODERNITIES 

us  as  neither  monstrous  nor  unreasonable.  For  if 
we  may  presume  to  put  our  own  unauthorised  gloss 
on  M.  Marinetti's  vividly  illuminated  manuscript, 
what  the  Futurist  really  wishes  is  to  break  down  the 
conventional  divorce  that  is  so  often  thought  to  exist 
between  ideal  Art  and  actual  Life,  so  as  to  bring  the 
two  elements  into  the  most  drastic  and  immediate 
contact.  Art,  in  fact,  should  not  be  an  escape  from 
but  an  exaltation  of  the  red  impetus  of  life.  Art's 
function  is  not  merely  to  titillate  the  dispassionate 
aesthetic  feeling  of  the  dilettante  or  connoisseur, 
but  to  thrill  with  a  keen  vital  emotion  the  actual 
experiencer  of  life.  Form  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  its 
sole  function  is  to  extract  the  whole  emotional  quality 
of  its  content.  And  when  confronted  with  the 
problem  of  what  content  is  best  fitted  to  be  the 
proper  subject  of  artistic  representation,  your  Futurist 
would  promptly  retort  that,  inasmuch  as  the  tumul- 
tuous twentieth-century  emotions  of  "steel,  pride,  fever, 
and  speed  "  are  those  to  which  the  twentieth-century 
civilisation  will  naturally  vibrate  with  the  most 
authentic  sympathy,  those  emotions  and  those  alone 
are  the  proper  subject-matter  for  twentieth-century  art. 
Having  thus  obtained  some  rough  idea  of  the 
broad  lines  of  the  new  Futurism,  let  us  proceed  to 
examine  its  manifestation  in  the  spheres  of  painting 
and  literature.  So  far  as  their  painting  is  concerned, 
the  primary  principle  of  the  Futurists  is  their  sub- 
ordination of  intrinsic  aesthetic  form  to  emotional 
content.  This  principle,  though  carried  to  a  pitch 
far  transcending  anything  which  had  ever  been 
previously  essayed,  is  by  no  means  without  its  exem- 
plifications, in  the  history  both  of  past  and  con- 
temporary art.  Even  indeed  in  the  eighteenth  century 
Blake  had  transferred  on  to  the  painted  canvas 
his    highly    abstract    ideas    of    esoteric    mysticism. 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     219 

The  content  of  the  pictures  of  Blake  is  of  course 
diametrically  opposed  to  the  content  of  the  Futurists, 
yet  an  authentic  analogy  lies  in  the  fact  that  a  con- 
tent at  all  should  have  been  specifically  painted. 
With  a  similar  qualification  we  can  remember  with 
advantage  how  Rossetti  and  Burne-Jones,  as  indisput- 
ably modern  in  the  fact  that  they  had  the  courage  to 
paint  a  content  at  all,  as  they  were  indisputably 
reactionary  in  the  actual  content  which  they  felt 
inspired  to  portray,  gave  pictorial  representation  to 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  nostalgia  for  a  prae-mediaeval 
past.  More  analogous  are  the  canvases  of  Franz 
von  Stuck,  the  Munich  Secessionist,  who  also  sets  out 
to  paint  ideas  and  to  give  aesthetic  form  to  psycho- 
logical contents.  Thus  his  Krieg,  with  its  grimly 
triumphant  rider,  steadfastly  pursuing  the  goal  of  an 
ideal  future  over  the  wallowing  corpses  of  a  tran- 
scended present,  expresses  perfectly  in  the  sphere  of 
paint  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Nietzschean  Superman. 

Even  better  examples  of  the  growing  predominance 
of  the  content  in  the  sphere  of  art  are  to  be  found 
in  Rodin,  who  moulds  even  in  immobile  statuary 
something  of  the  tumultuous  sweep  of  the  present 
age,  or  in  Max  Klinger  the  creator  in  concrete  form 
of  the  most  abstract  and  impalpable  ideas. 

So  also  modern  music,  as  represented  at  any  rate 
by  the  tense  restlessness  of  Richard  Strauss  with  all 
his  fine  shades  of  crouching  fear  and  exultant  cruelty, 
or  the  mystical  sensuousness  of  Debussy,  ceases  to 
be  a  mere  meaningless  euphony  of  pleasing  melody, 
devoid  of  any  vital  significance  except  its  own  aesthetic 
beauty,  sets  itself  more  and  more  to  travel,  in  the 
sphere  of  sound,  over  the  whole  vibrant  gamut  of 
the  human  emotions. 

To  achieve  the  presentation  of  a  content  with  the 
maximum  of  drastic  effect,  the  Futurists  have  invented 


220  MODERNITIES 

a  new  technique.  Without  embarking  on  any 
elaborate  technical  discussion,  we  would  say  that 
their  chief  principle  in  the  painting  of  apparently  even 
the  most  objective  phenomena  is  that  it  should  be 
the  aim  of  the  artist  to  reproduce  no  mere  picturesque 
copy  of  some  stationary  pose,  but  that  whole  sen- 
sorial or  emotional  quality  inherent  in  all  dynamic 
life  which  radiates  to  the  mind  of  the  spectator,  or 
which  again  may  be  simply  flashed  into  dynamic 
life  by  the  mind  of  the  spectator  himself. 

And  as,  according  to  our  latest  and  most  fashion- 
able metaphysical  authority,  the  ego,  whether  of  a 
man,  an  insect,  or  a  cosmos,  is  merely  a  movement, 
it  should  not  strike  us  as  altogether  unreasonable 
if  the  dynamic  idea  of  movement  should  enter  very 
prominently  into  the  Futurist  paintings.  For,  realis- 
ing fully  that  consciousness  is  a  stream  and  not  a 
pond,  and  that  both  cerebral  memories  and  visual 
impressions  are  but,  as  it  were,  the  flying  nets  hastily 
created  and  re-created  to  catch  a  world  that  is 
perpetually  on  the  run,  the  Futurists  make  boldly 
ingenious  efforts  to  capture  the  jumping  chameleon 
of  truth,  by  portraying  not  one  but  several  phases 
of  the  unending  series  of  the  human  cinematograph. 

Thus  in  Severini's  picture  of  the  "  Pan-Pan  dance 
at  the  Monico,"  the  artist  sets  himself  to  paint  the 
whole  moving,  multicoloured  soul  of  this  by  no 
means  spiritual  Montmartre  tavern,  with  all  its 
various  subdivisions  of  male  and  female  customers 
engaged  in  their  mutual  revels  and  their  mutual 
dances,  the  deviltry  of  its  rigolo  music,  and  all  the 
hustling  clash  and  clatter  of  its  insolent  carouse. 

It  is  also  significant  of  their  general  Weltanschauung 
that  the  Futurists  should  frequently  find  their  inspira- 
tion in  the  speed,  stress,  and  creativity  of  a  glorious 
modernity.     Thus    Russolo's    "  Rebellion,"   angular, 


THE  FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     221 

aggressive,  rampant,  reproduces  the  whole  red  energy 
of  an  insurgent  proletariate,  while  the  same  painter's 
'*  Train  "  essays,  and  not  unsuccessfully,  to  paint  the 
very  lights  and  ridges  of  velocity  itself. 

The  feats  of  the  new  culture  in  the  realm  of 
literature  are  quite  as  impressive  and  as  sensational 
as  in  that  of  painting.  This  brings  us  to  some  con- 
sideration of  M.  Marinetti  himself,  both  the  real  and 
the  official,  chief  of  the  new  movement. 

To  comprehend  the  true  essence  of  this  man,  who 
certainly  constitutes  a  European  portent  which, 
whether  hated  or  loved,  can  scarcely  be  ignored, 
it  is  necessary  to  realise  that  while  a  poet  he  is 
above  all  a  man  of  the  world  and  of  action.  While, 
also,  as  would  appear  from  his  visit  to  the  Morning 
Post  correspondent  in  Tripoli,  he  is  a  gentleman 
inflamed  by  a  genuine  if  no  doubt  slightly  truculent 
patriotism,  he  has  all  the  advantages  of  being 
an  almost  perfect  cosmopolitan.  Born  in  Egypt 
of  Italian  parents,  educated  in  France,  and  now 
directing  the  Futurist  movement  from  Milan, 
M.  Marinetti  combines  all  the  heat  of  an  African 
temperament  with  all  the  mercurial  dash  and 
aggressiveness  of  the  modern  Latin  civilisation. 
At  present  only  in  the  early  thirties,  M.  Marinetti 
founded  in  the  years  1 904-1 905  his  international 
review  Poesia.  To  this  journal  he  endeavoured  to 
attract  all  that  was  strenuous,  aspiring,  and  daring 
in  the  artistic  youth  of  the  Latin  civilisation.  Event- 
ually the  various  tentative  ideals  and  ideas  which 
he  and  his  colleagues  entertained  became  crystallised 
in  the  word  Futurism,  which  grew  more  and  more 
a  definite  creed  with  a  more  and  more  definite  cate- 
chism of  literature,  music,  painting,  politics,  and  life. 
Since  the  publication  of  the  first  Futurist  manifesto 
in   the  Figaro  in    1909,   M.    Marinetti   has    devoted 


222  MODERNITIES 

himself  to  waging  with  all  his  militant  energy  of 
tongue,  sword,  and  pen  the  campaign  of  Futurism. 
Meeting  after  meeting,  demonstration  after  demon- 
stration has  he  addressed  in  Italy,  and,  carrying  the 
war  into  the  enemy's  country,  he  has  even  had  the 
audacity  to  hurl  his  defiance  from  Trieste  itself. 
And  if  the  deliberate  provocativeness  at  which  he 
has  pitched  his  propaganda  has  brought  upon  him 
the  venomous  hatred  of  both  numerous  and  power- 
ful enemies,  it  has  merely  served  to  give  but  an 
additional  fillip  to  the  fury  of  his  impetus. 

It  is  indeed  not  only  amusing,  but  also  an  indica- 
tion of  the  man's  verve  and  defiance,  to  remember 
that  when  he  had  been  hissed  for  a  whole  hour  on 
end  in  the  Theatre  Mercadante  of  Naples,  where  he 
was  delivering  a  lecture,  and  an  apparently  quite 
edible  orange  was  eventually  thrown  at  him,  he  should 
with  fine  bravura  take  out  his  penknife  and  both  peel 
and  eat  the  orange.  In  Italy,  at  any  rate,  Futurism 
has  swept  the  universities,  and  the  disciples  of  the 
new  faith  number  50,000.  Endeavouring  to  give  to 
the  campaign  a  cosmopolitan  significance,  theFuturists 
have  carried  their  pictures,  their  manifestos,  and  their 
books  to  Madrid,  to  Berlin,  to  Paris  (where  they  were 
enthusiastically  toasted  by  the  "  Association  Generate 
des  Etudiants,"  the  Parisian  equivalent  of  the  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  Unions),  and  even  to  England  itself, 
which,  with  a  surprising  lack  of  its  usual  insularity, 
would  actually  appear  to  be  taking  an  intelligent  in- 
terest in  a  new  movement  without  waiting,  as  was 
the  case  with  Nietzscheanism,  until  it  has  first  become 
the  respectable  if  passee  object  of  the  devotion  of 
Continental  academicism. 

Before  we  proceed  on  our  short  survey  of  the  chief 
works  of  M.  Marinetti,  which  have  been  written  in 
French  and  only  subsequently  translated  into  Italian, 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     223 

it  is  necessary  to  make  some  brief  mention  of  the 
new  technique  which  he  employs.  This  new  tech- 
nique is  Free  Verse,  first  introduced  into  French 
literature  in  the  Palais  Nomades  of  M.  Gustave  Kahn. 
It  should  be  remembered,  of  course,  that  French  Free 
Verse  is  an  article  totally  distinct  from  that  mixture 
of  rolling  dithyramb  and  conversational  slap-dash 
which  characterises  the  work  of  Walt  Whitman. 

So  far  indeed  as  M.  Gustave  Kahn  is  concerned, 
the  innovation  simply  consisted  not  in  any  repudia- 
tion of  rhyme  in  itself,  but  in  the  emancipation  of 
French  verse  from  the  strait-waistcoat  of  the  Alex- 
andrine and  the  strict  disciplinary  rules  of  academic 
composition. 

M.  Marinetti,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  three 
volumes  which  it  is  now  proposed  to  consider,  viz. 
La  Conquete  des  Etoiles  (Sansot,  1902),  Destruction 
(Vanier,  1904),  La  Ville  Charnelle  (Sansot,  1908), 
carries  the  metrical  revolution  considerably  further. 
For  while  the  essence  of  classicism  itself  when  com- 
pared with  the  polyphonic  though  at  times  majestic 
ebullitions  of  Walt  Whitman,  they  subserve  no  specific 
rule.  Metre,  genuine  metre,  is  invariably  present, 
but  the  precise  shape  which  it  happens  to  take  is 
determined  by  the  exigencies  not  of  the  particular 
metre  in  which  the  poet  happens  to  be  writing,  but 
of  the  particular  mood  or  emotion  which  clamours 
for  expression  in  the  form  most  specifically  appro- 
priate to  its  own  particular  idiosyncrasies.  If,  in 
fact,  we  may  endeavour  to  crystallise  the  theory  of 
this  verse,  which  though  free  from  mechanical  re- 
straint is  always  subordinate  to  the  command  of  its 
own  dynamic  soul,  we  should  say  that  it  is  simply 
the  principle  of  onomatopoeia  carried  from  the  sphere 
of  words  to  the  sphere  of  metre. 

In  the  Conquete  des  Etoiles  the  twenty-four-year-old 


224  MODERNITIES 

Marinetti,  with  the  characteristic  verve  of  audacious 
adolescence,  essays  to  open  the  oyster  of  the  poetical 
world  with  the  sword  of  a  romantic  epic.  Bearing 
evidence  at  times,  in  its  grandiose  anthropomorphism 
of  natural  phenomena,  of  the  influence  of  u  his  old 
masters  the  French  Symbolists,"  the  poem  of  this 
future  champion  of  a  concrete  modernity  challenges, 
at  any  rate  in  the  gigantic  massing  of  its  imagery, 
that  grandiose  if  somewhat  bourgeois  romantic  Victor 
Hugo.  For  here  poetic  Pelion  is  piled  upon  poetic 
Ossa  with  the  most  drastic  vengeance.  For  the 
Sovereign  Sea,  chanting  her  inaugural  battle-cry, 

"  Hola-h6  !      Hola-ho  !      Stridionla,  Stridionla,  Stridionla  ! 
Stridionlaire  ! " 

to  her  ancient  waves,  puissant  warriors  with  venerable 
beards  of  foam,  lashes  them  to  conquer  Space  and 
mount  to  the  assault  of  the  grinning  Stars.  And 
missiles  are  there  in  her  Reservoir  of  Death — u  pet- 
rified bodies,  bodies  of  steel,  embers  and  gold,  harder 
than  the  diamond,  the  suicides  whose  courage  failed 
beneath  the  weight  of  their  heart,  that  furnace  of  stars, 
those  who  died  for  that  they  stoked  within  their  blood 
the  fire  of  the  Ideal,  the  great  flame  of  the  Absolute 
that  encompassed  them."  And  for  an  army  has  she 
the  legions  of  her  amazon  cavalry,  the  veterans  of 
the  Sea,  the  great  waves,  the  riotous,  prancing  nar- 
whals with  their  scaly  rings,  the  typhoons,  the  cyclones 
and  the  haughty  trombes  (water-spouts),  "  draping 
around  their  loins  their  fuliginous  veils,  or  lifting 
masses  of  darkness  in  their  great  open  arms."  And 
so  this  feud  of  the  elements  proceeds  from  climax  to 
climax,  from  crescendo  to  crescendo,  till  the  astral 
fortresses  succumb  to  the  shock  of  an  infernal  charge, 
and  the  last  star  expires  "  with  her  pupils  of  grey 
shadow  imploring  the  Unknown,  oh  how  sweetly." 
No  doubt  the  poem  almost  reels  at  times  as  though 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     225 

intoxicated  with  the  excesses  of  its  own  imagery.  Yet 
making  all  due  discount  for  this  healthy  turgidity  of 
adolescence,  it  is  impossible  to  dispute  the  authentic 
poetical  value  of  this  brilliant  epic. 

By  so  masterly  a  grasp  is  the  metre  handled  that 
the  reader,  quite  oblivious  of  the  immaterial  question 
of  whether  he  is  perusing  verse  or  prose,  is  only  con- 
scious of  the  ideas  and  emotions  themselves.  The 
following  passage  is  typical  not  only  of  the  poem's 
potency  of  expression,  but  of  the  intimate  union 
which  is  effected  between  the  meaning  and  the  form. 

"  C'est  ainsi  que  passe  le  Simoun, 
aiguillonant  sa  furie  de  de'sert  en  desert, 
avec  son  escorte  caracolante 
de  sables  souleves  tout  ruisselants  de  feu  ; 
c'est  ainsi  que  le  Simoun  galope 
sur  Poce'an  fige"  des  sables, 
en  balancant  son  torse  geant  d'idole  barbare 
sur  des  fuyantes  croupes  d'onagres  affotes." 

In  the  series  of  poems,  however,  known  as  De- 
struction, 

"Since  there  is  only  splendour  in  this  word  of  terror 
And  of  crushing  force  like  a  Cyclopaean  hammer," 

that  boyish  robustness  which  we  have  seen  playing 
so  naively  in  the  romantic  limbo,  has  attained  the 
solidity  of  manhood.  Finding  it  no  longer  necessary 
to  have  recourse  for  his  subject-matter  to  some  set 
theme  of  an  Elemental  War,  the  author  reproduces 
the  experiences  of  his  own  inner  life  in  a  new  lyrical 
language,  whose  rhythm  vibrates  responsively  to  every 
thrill  of  its  creator's  spirit,  and  takes  faithfully  every 
colour  of  his  chameleon  soul. 
For  the  poet  is  now  reverential : 

"  Tu  es  infinie  et  divine,  o  Mer,  et  je  le  sais 
de  par  le  jurement  de  tes  levres,  6cumantes 
de  par  ton  jurement  que  repercutent  de  plage  en  plage 
les  echos  attentifs  ainsi  que  des  guetteurs." 

P 


226  MODERNITIES 

now  jocund : 

"  O  Mer,  mon  ame  est  puerile  et  demande  un  jouet  ■  ; 

now,  almost  sensually,  adoring : 

"  O  toi  ballerine  orientale  au  ventre  sursautant, 
dont  les  seins  sont  rouges  par  le  sang  des  naufrages  *  ; 

now  sunk  in  the  abject  ecstasies  of  opium  : 

"  Derriere  des  vitres  rouges  des  voix  rauques  criaient 
1  De  la  moelle  et  du  sang  pour  les  lampees  d'oubli 
C'est  le  prix  des  beaux  reves  !  .  .  .  c'est  le  prix  .  .  .' 
Et  j'entrais  avec  eux  au  bouge  de  ma  chair  "  ; 

now  gentle: 

"  C'est  pour  nous  que  le  Vent  las  de  voyages  eternels, 
disabuse"  de  sa  vitesse  de  fant6me, 
froissant  d'une  main  lasse,  au  trefonds  de  l'espace, 
les  velours  somptueux  d'un  grand  oreiller  d'ombre 
tout  diamantes  de  larmes  siderales  "  ; 

now  bitterly  conscious  of  the  ironic  raillery  of  the 
sea  : 

"  Vos  caresses  brulantes,  vos  savantes  caresses, 
sont  pareilles  a  des  tatonnements  d'aveugles 
qui  vont  ramant  par  les  couloirs  d'un  labyrinthe  ! 
Vos  baisers  ont  toujours  1'acharnement  infatigable 
d'un  dialogue  enrage  entre  deux  sourds 
emprisonnes  au  fond  d'un  cachot  noir." 

Even  more  characteristic  of  the  feverish,  but  not 
unhealthy  ardour  of  the  book  is  that  series  of  ten 
poems  entitled  Le  Demon  de  la  Vitesse,  a  kind  of 
railway  journey  of  the  modern  soul.  For  now  the 
poet,  stoking  the  engines  of  his  pounding  brain  with 
the  monstrous  coals  of  his  own  energy,  drives  his 
train  of  ^Eschylean  images  (well  equipped  with  all 
the  latest  modern  inventions)  with  all  the  record- 
breaking  rapidity  of  some  Trans-American  express, 
from  the  u  vermilion  terraces  of  love,"  across  u  Hindu 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     227 

evenings,"  "  tyrannical  rivers,"  "  avenging  forests," 
"  milleniar  torrents,"  and  "  the  dusky  corpulence  of 
mountains,"  to  traverse  "  the  delirium  of  Space,"  and 
"  the  supreme  plateaux  of  an  absurd  Ideal,"  to  end 
finally  in  the  grinding  shock  of  a  collision  and  all  the 
agony  of  a  shipwrecked  vessel.  It  is  in  this  series  of 
poems  that  the  author's  wealth  of  imagery,  always 
superabundant,  lavishes  its  most  profound  and  inces- 
sant exuberance. 

For  such  phrases  as  "  the  drunken  fulness  of 
streaming  stars  in  the  great  bed  of  heaven,"  "  oh, 
folly,  my  folly,  oh,  Eternal  Juggler,"  "O  wind, 
crucified  beneath  the  nails  of  the  stars,"  **  the  flesh 
scorched  in  the  burning  tunic  of  a  terrible  desire," 
u  the  sad  towns  crucified  on  the  great  crossed  arms  of 
the  white  road"  are  not  mere  isolated  flashes  of  poetical 
riches,  but  casual  samples  of  an  opulence  displaying 
itself  on  this  same  grandiose  scale  throughout  every 
line  of  every  poem.  Note,  also,  that  the  poet  has 
completely  fused  himself  with  the  whole  scientific 
universe.  He  will  thus  portray  a  man  in  the  terms 
of  some  dynamic  entity  of  mechanical  science, 
which  as  likely  as  not  will  itself  be  represented  in 
terms  of  humanity.  Contrast,  for  instance,  such 
phrases  as — 

"  Les  geantes  pneumatiques  de  l'Orgueil,"  or  w  train  fougueux 
de  mon  ame," 

with — 

"  Colonnes  de  fumee,  immenses  bras  de  negre, 
anneles  d'etincelles  et  de  rubis  sanglants." 

To  sum  up  the  essential  character  of  Destruction, 
we  would  say  that  releasing  poetry  from  the  shackles 
of  the  conventional  subject-matter,  the  conventional 
language,  and  the  conventional  metres  to  which  it 


228  MODERNITIES 

had  been  so  long  confined,  it  lays  the  hitherto  un- 
travelled  lines  of  the  speed  and  beauty  of  the  whole 
of  modern  civilisation,  with  its  all-unexplored  scientific 
and  psychological  regions,  as  it  sings  the  rushing 
rhapsody  of  the  whole  spirit  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury. 

"  I  bid  ye  pant  your  fury  and  your  spleen, 
I  reck  not  the  long  roarings  of  your  wrath, 
O  galloping  Simoons  of  my  ambition, 
Who  heavily  the  city's  threshold  paw, 
Nor  ever  shall  ye  cross  her  sensual  walls, 
Ye  neigh  in  vain  in  my  stopped  ears,  already 
With  rosy  murmurs  steeped  and  stupefied 
(And  subterranean  voices  of  the  deep), 
Like  spells  of  freshness  full  of  the  sea's  song." 

The  above  quotation  may  perhaps  give  such 
readers  as  have  not  the  luxury  of  the  French 
language  some  faint  shadow  of  the  warm  charm  of 
La  Ville  Charnelle,  which,  at  any  rate  from  the  con- 
ventional standard  of  ordinary  aesthetic  beauty,  re- 
presents the  zenith  of  M.  Marinetti's  poetical  achieve- 
ment. For  in  his  second  volume  of  verse,  our 
author  abandons  the  furious  pace  of  his  rushing 
modernity  to  sing  the  almost  sensual  beauty  of  a 
tropical  town,  with  "the  silky  murmur  of  its  African 
sea,"  its  pointed  "  mosques  of  desire,"  and  its  u  hills 
moulded  like  the  knees  of  women,  and  swathed  in  the 
linen  billows  of  its  dazzling  chalk."  The  swift  piston 
rhythm  of  Destruction  is  exchanged  for  a  measure 
which,  though  untrammelled  by  any  tight  convention, 
is  often  clad  in  the  Turkish  trousers  of  some  languor- 
ous rhyme,  or  slides  with  the  voluptuous  swish  of 
some  blank  alexandrine.  But  if  the  flood  of  images 
has  abated  its  turbulence  to  a  serener  beauty,  it  has 
not  thereby  suffered  any  loss  of  volume,  as  is  evi- 
denced by  such  phrases  as  "  les  molles  emeraudes  de 
prairies   infinies,"  "la  bouche  eclatee  des   horizons 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     229 

engloutisseurs,"  or  "jusqu'au  volant  trapeze  de    ce 
grand  vent  gymnaste." 

Or  take  the  following  passage  from  The  Banjoes  of 
Despair  and  of  Adventure : 

*  Elles  chantent,  les  benjohs  hysteriques  et  sauvages, 
comme  des  chattes  enervdes  par  l'odeur  de  l'orage- 
Ce  sont  des  negres  qui  les  tiennent 
empoignees  violemment,  comme  on  tient 
une  amarre  que  secoue  la  bourrasque. 
Elles  miaulent,  les  benjohs,  sous  leurs  doigts  frenetiques, 
et  la  mer,  en  bombant  son  dos  d'hippopotame, 
acclame  leurs  chansons  par  des  flic-flacs  sonores 
et  des  renaclements." 

More  aery  and  fantastic  in  their  radiance  are  the 
Little  Dramas  of  Light,  which  in  the  same  volume 
play  outside  the  walls  of  La  Ville  Chamelle.  For 
pushing  the  pathetic  fallacy  to  the  extreme  limit  of 
pantheism,  or  anthropomorphism,  as  one  cares  to 
put  it,  our  author  constructs  his  miniature  scenes 
out  of  the  interplay  of  plants,  elements,  and  the  very 
fabrics  of  human  invention,  all  participating  in  some- 
thing of  the  mingled  dash,  despair,  and  desire  which 
go  to  weave  the  somewhat  complex  tissue  of  our 
ultra-modern  humanity. 

Even  the  titles  of  a  few  of  these  delicate  poems 
give  some  idea  of  their  darting  beauty — "  The  Foolish 
Vines  and  the  Greyhound  of  the  Firmament "  (the 
Moon),  "  The  Life  of  the  Sails,"  "  The  Death  of  the 
Fortresses,"  "  The  Folly  of  the  Little  Houses,"  «  The 
Dying  Vessels,"  "  The  Japanese  Dawn,"  u  The 
Courtesans  of  Gold  "  (the  Stars). 

Observe,  also,  the  eminently  twentieth-century 
temperament  of  the  "  coquettish  vessels,"  who,  "  half- 
clothed  in  their  ragged  sails,  and  playing  like  urchins 
with  the  incandescent  ball  of  the  sun,"  have  yet 
experienced  u  amid  the  disillusioned  smile  of  the 
autumn  evenings"  the  desire  for  a  fuller  and  more 


230  MODERNITIES 

tumultuous  life  than  is  afforded  by  the  "  ventriloquist 
soliloquies  of  the  gurgling  waters  of  the  quays." 

"  C'est  ainsi,  c'est  ainsi  que  les  jeunes  Navires 
implorent  affolees  delivrance, 
en  s'esclaffant  de  tous  leurs  linges  barioles, 
claquant  au  vent  comme  les  levres  briilees  de  fievre. 
Leurs  drisses  et  leurs  haubans  se  raidissent 
tels  des  nerfs  trop  tendus  qui  grincent  de  de'sir, 
car  ils  veulent  partir  et  s'en  aller 
vers  la  tristesse  affreuse  (qu'importe  ?)  inconsolable 
et  (qu'importe  ?)  infinie 
d'avoir  tout  savoure  et  tout  maudit  (qu'importe  ?)." 

We  can  perhaps  best  formulate  the  dynamic  elan 
de  vie,  which  pulses  through  every  line  of  M.  Marinetti's 
poems,  by  indulging  in  the  perversion  of  the  great 
line  of  Baudelaire,  so  that  we  can  give  to  our  poet 
for  his  motto : 

"  Je  hais  la  ligne  qui  tue  le  mouvement." 

M.  Marinetti's  activity,  however,  is  not  limited  to 
the  sphere  of  verse.  In  1905  he  published  Le  Rot 
Bombance  {Mercure  de  France),  a  satyric  tragedy,  com- 
pound of  the  scarcely  harmonious  temperaments  of 
Rabelais  and  Maeterlinck,  a  wild  extravaganza  of 
anthropophagy  and  resurrection,  which  satirises  the 
prominent  figures  in  contemporary  Italian  politics, 
including  the  recently  dead  Crispi,  Ferri,  and  Tenatri, 
and  contains  withal  a  profound  undercurrent  of  socio- 
logical truth.  Poupees  Electriques  (Sansot)  followed 
in  1909,  a  play  which,  with  all  its  brilliance  and  origin- 
ality, somehow  just  misses  the  real  dramatic  pitch. 

Far  more  significant  are  the  belles  lettres  of  Les 
Dieux  s'en  vont  U Annunzio  reste  (Sansot,  1908),  with 
its  steely  dash  of  style  and  its  criticism  at  once 
singularly  acute  and  delightfully  malicious  of  the 
official  protagonist  of  all  Italian  culture,  and  the 
recently  published  Futurisme  (Sansot,    1911). 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     231 

But  of  all  the  works  of  M.  Marinetti,  the  most 
impressive  is  the  great  prose  epic,  Mafarka  Le 
Futuriste.  It  is  in  the  three  hundred  pages  of  this 
novel,  which  describes  the  destructive  and  creative 
exploits  of  a  militant  and  intellectual  African  prince, 
that  the  Futurist  leader  has  given  the  most  complete 
expression  to  the  vehement  surge  of  his  genius.  In 
this  book,  the  spirits  of  the  East  and  of  the  West 
strangely  combine.  The  gross  heat  of  an  African 
sun  beats  incessantly  down  upon  these  torrid  pages, 
yet  even  the  most  oriental  passages  have  such  a 
Homeric  freshness  of  epic  sweep  as  to  render  them 
immeasurably  cleaner  than  the  sniggering  indecencies 
of  not  a  few  of  even  the  more  fashionable  and 
respectable  of  our  lady  novelists.  Incident  follows 
on  incident,  adventure  on  adventure,  with  the  magic 
bewilderment  of  some  Arabian  Night,  an  Arabian  night 
illumined  by  the  galvanic  current  of  some  twentieth- 
century  genie,  as  it  flashes  image  after  image  on  the 
multicoloured  sheet  of  some  dancing  cinematograph. 
The  style  bounds  with  a  lithe  male  crispness,  in 
comparison  with  which  even  the  luxuriant  and  self- 
complacent  flowers  of  D'Annunzio  himself  seem  at 
times  to  offer  but  rank  and  androgynous  beauties. 

How  admirable,  for  instance,  is  such  a  passage  as — 

"  And  Mafarka-el-Bey  bounded  forward,  with  great  elastic  steps, 
sliding  on  the  voluptuous  springs  of  the  wind  and  rolling — like 
a  word  of  victory — in  the  very  mouth  of  God  "  ; 

or  such  a  perfect  Homeric  simile  as — 

"  All  the  beloved  sweetness  of  his  vanished  youth  mounted  in 
his  throat,  even  as  from  the  courtyard  of  schools  there  mount  the 
joyous  cries  of  children  towards  their  old  masters,  leaning  over 
the  parapet  of  the  terrace  from  which  they  see  the  flight  of  the 
vessels  upon  the  sea  "  ; 

or  such  a  perfect  description  as — 
"  Et  d'en  haut  descendaient  les  rayons  des  e*toiles  des  milliers 


232  MODERNITIES 

de  chainettes  dorees  tintinabulantes,  qui  balangaient  au  ras  de 
l'eau  leurs  tremblants  reflets,  innombrables  veilleuses." 

But  the  wondrous  story  of  how  Mafarka-el-Bey 
exhorted  to  the  work  of  war  the  thousands  of  his 
wallowing  soldiers  from  the  putrescent  bed  of  that 
dried-up  lake  ;  of  how,  disguising  himself  as  an  aged 
beggar,  he  visited  the  camp  of  the  negroes ;  of  the 
monstrous  tale  which  he  there  told  his  Ethiopian 
foes  ;  of  the  stratagem  by  which  he  drew  the  two 
pursuing  wings  of  the  infatuated  army  to  the  stupen- 
dous shock  of  an  internecine  collision ;  of  how  he 
annihilated  the  maddened  hordes  of  the  Hounds  of 
the  Sun  with  the  stones  flung  by  the  mechanical 
Giraffes  of  War ;  of  the  Neronian  banquet  in  the 
grotto  of  the  Whale's  Belly ;  of  the  agonised  hydro- 
phobic death  of  his  brother  Magamal,  the  light  of 
his  eyes ;  of  the  nocturnal  journey  in  which  he 
conveyed  across  the  sea  his  brother's  body  in  a  sack 
to  the  land  of  the  Hypogeans ;  of  the  Futurist  Dis- 
course which  he  there  held  ;  of  his  passing  encounter 
with  the  fellahin  Habbi  and  Luba ;  of  how,  dis- 
daining the  more  banal  method  of  filial  creation, 
he  compelled  the  weavers  of  Lagahourso  and  the 
smiths  of  Milmillah  to  make  the  body  of  that  Airgod 
Gazourmeh,  whose  spirit  he  had  fashioned  out  of 
the  glory  of  his  own  unaided  brain  ;  and  of  how  he 
died  exultantly,  brushed  away  beneath  the  gigantic 
wings  of  his  son,  as  it  flew  like  some  hilarious  parri- 
cide into  the  clear  infinitude,  is  it  not  all  written  in 
the  pages  of  Mafarka  Le  Futuriste  ?  (E.  Sansot  &  Cie, 
Paris,  3  fr.  50  c.) 

Note,  also,  the  religious  exultation  of  martial  and 
intellectual  energy,  whose  hoarse  prayer  is  uttered 
on  almost  every  page.  For  Mafarka  is  the  prophet 
of  that  u  new  voluptuousness  which  shall  have  rid 
the  world  of  love  when  he  shall  have  founded  the 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     233 

religion  of  the  concrete  will  and  of  the  heroism  of 
every  single  day." 

And  to  still  further  exemplify  his  new  religion 
of  war  and  energy,  and  inspired,  too,  no  doubt  by 
the  airy  message  of  the  Arab  bullets,  M.  Marinetti 
finished  on  the  29th  November  191 1  in  the  trenches 
of  Sidi-Missri,  near  Tripoli,  the  great  free-verse  epic 
of  three  hundred  and  fifty  pages,  entitled  The  Pope's 
Monoplane.  The  function  of  this  poem,  which  is 
certainly  the  most  original  epic  known  to  literary 
history,  is  to  serve  as  an  anti-clerical,  an  anti-pacifist, 
and  anti-Austrian  polemic.  And  this  function  it  ac- 
complishes by  a  technique  which  in  its  successful 
audacity  transcends  even  itself.  For  nowhere  is  the 
free  verse  of  Marinetti  more  free.  New  harmonies 
and  even  new  dissonances  are  conjured  up  according 
to  the  emotion  to  be  expressed  and  the  object  to  be 
described,  while  the  terminology  of  mechanics  and 
physiology  is  judiciously  mingled  with  just  a  trace 
of  the  old  romanticism.  The  whole  epic  quite  literally 
flies  with  inordinate  swiftness.  For  the  poet  is, 
on  his  monoplane,  careering  over  the  heart  of  Italy. 
He  takes  counsel  of  his  father  the  volcano,  and, 
flying  back  to  Rome,  fishes  up  by  means  of  an  iron 
chain  with  a  spring-trap  the  great  polished  Seal,  or, 
as  he  exultantly  describes  it, 

"  Un  pape,  un  vrai  pape,  le  saint  Pontif  lui-m6me." 

And  on  he  flies  on  his  missionary  career,  with  the 
miserable  Vicar  of  God  dangling  helplessly  beneath 
him,  now  present  at  the  debates  of  Les  Moucherons 
Politiciens,  now  assisting  at  the  tumultuous  congress 
of  Les  Syndicats  Pacifistes,  now  side  by  side  with  the 
moon,  now  exhorting  the  Italian  youth  to  shake  off 
their  execrable  lethargy,  and,  finally,  participating 
in   the  eventual   overthrow  of  the   Austrian  enemy. 


234  MODERNITIES 

This  poem  marks  an  immense  advance  on  the  earlier 
epic,  La  Conquite  des  £toiles,  to  which  we  have  already 
referred.  It  pullulates  with  an  equal  energy,  but 
this  energy  is  tenser  and  far  less  turgid.  It  is  an 
energy,  moreover,  whose  impetus  is  expended  not  on 
imaginative  abstractions,  but  on  the  drastic  attack  of 
concrete  political  problems.  As  a  sheer  piece,  too, 
of  description,  Marinetti's  description  of  the  Battle  of 
Monfalcone  is  in  our  view  superior  to  any  of  the 
military  verse  even  of  Kipling  himself.  The  Popes 
Monoplane  is,  of  course,  an  aggressively  specific  ex- 
ample of  realism  in  poetry.  But  it  is  a  realism 
which,  so  far  from  clipping  the  wings  of  Pegasus, 
rather  spurs  him  to  higher  and  more  strenuous 
flights.  We  may  perhaps  conclude  our  survey  of 
this  work  by  an  endeavour  to  render  into  English 
a  characteristic  passage  from  the  dialogue  between 
the  Poet  and  the  Volcano. 

The  Volcano 

Ne'er  have  I  slept ;  I  labour  endlessly, 
Enriching  space  with  many  a  masterpiece 

That  lives  and  dies  in  a  day. 
Over  the  baking  of  the  chiselled  rocks 
Upon  the  vitrefaction  of  the  many-coloured  sands 

I  keep  my  watch 
So  well  that  the  clay  'neath  my  fingers 

Will  metamorphose 

To  a  porcelain  of  perfect  rose, 
Which  I  shatter  with  the  buffets  of  my  steam. 

My  accomplice  is  the  Strait  of  Messina 

Which  dozes  in  the  dawn,  couching  white  and  glossy 

As  an  Angora  cat  .  .  . 
My  accomplice  is  the  Strait  of  Messina 
Lolling  like  a  cushion  of  lazy  turquoise  silk, 
With  soft  Arabian  words  embroidered  by  the  wake 

Of  clouds  and  languorous  sails, 

Words  woven  silently  methinks 
With  a  fair  silver  thread  upon  the  ocean's  robe. 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     285 

The  perfidious  moon  is  my  accomplice, 
The  arch-courtesan  of  the  painted  stars, 
For  nowhere  are  the  moon's  cajoleries 
So  luring  and  persuasive. 

And  nowhere  does  the  moon  cast  such  assiduous  eyes 
To  seduce  the  hard  red  funnels  of  the  steamers, 

Those  surly  strollers  South 

With  a  fat  cigar  in  their  mouth 
Whose  smoke  they  spit  against  the  azure  sky. 

And  nowhere  does  the  moon  throw  such  a  tender  shower 

Of  soft  and  violet  ashes, 
As  that  which  lulls  to  sleep  the  lava  petrified 
On  the  black  houses  hanging  on  my  flanks. 
And  nowhere  has  the  moon  such  poignancy 
Of  inundations  of  light  and  ecstasy, 

As  on  the  gashed  paths 

Carved  by  my  surgical  fire. 

But  woe  to  those  who  follow  the  bleating  light  of  the  moon, 

And  the  plaintive  bells  of  the  flocks, 
And  the  bitter  flutes  of  the  shepherds  whose  world-weary  notes 
Are  long,  long  threads  that  vanish  in  the  blue  ! 
Woe  to  those  who  refuse  to  make  their  galloping  blood 
Keep  step  with  the  gallop  of  the  blood  of  my  devastation  ! 

And  woe  to  those  who  wish  to  root  their  heads, 

To  root  their  feet  and  houses 

In  a  craven  hope  of  eternity  ! 
A  truce  to  building,  for  ye  must  encamp  ! 
Nay,  am  I  not  shaped  even  as  a  tent 
Whose  truncated  top  fanneth  my  wrath  ? 
I  only  love  the  acrobatic  stars 
Who  balance  on  the  rolling  balls  of  smoke 

Wherewith  I  juggle  ! 

MYSFvF 

I  can  dance  to  them,  and  juggle  in  mid  air, 
And  shower  my  song  on  the  reverberations 

Of  thy  storms  that  breed 

In  subterranean  depths  !  .  .  . 

And  I  descend 
To  hear  the  diapasons  of  thy  voice. 

So  make  a  pause 


236  MODERNITIES 

In  the  electrical  discharges  of  thy  tubes 
That  tear  from  thy  base  the  underlying  rocks. 
Enjoin  to  silence  all  thy  babbling  grottoes, 
That  all  a-flutter  quiver  ceaselessly. 

Gag  with  thick  cinders 
The  basaltic  echoes  whose  chorus  rings  thy  praise. 

What  good  are  thy  volcanic  bombs 

That  serve  as  punctuations  for  the  growlings  of  thy  speech  ? 

And  what  care  I  for  the  ruddy  jets 

Of  thine  aggressive  foam  ? 
Thy  deluges  of  mud  have  soiled  my  wings  of  white, 
But  check  me  not,  for  proof  against  thine  avalanche 
Of  scoria  I  descend,  gilded  and  aureoled 
By  all  the  powdery  shower  of  thy  dumbfounded  gold. 

It  is  also  relevant  to  mention  that  M.  Marinetti  has 
been  recently  formulating  new  rules  and  principles 
for  his  new  literary  code.  Among  the  more  drastic 
phases  of  this  stylistic  revolution  we  would  mention 
the  employment  of  mathematical  signs  and  symbols, 
the  rebellion  from  too  rigid  and  pedantic  a  syntax, 
the  minimum  use  of  the  adjective  and  the  infinitive, 
the  opening  up  of  new  fields  of  images  and  metaphors, 
and  the  freer  and  more  increased  use  of  onomatopoeia. 
These  ideas  are  succinctly,  though  no  doubt  extrava- 
gantly, set  out  in  the  two  manifestos  entitled  Wireless 
Imagination  and  Words  at  Liberty  and  The  Futurist  Anti- 
Tradition. 

Space  vetoes  more  than  the  enumeration  of  the 
other  Futurist  poets — Luccini,  Palazzescho,  Folgore, 
and  Altomare — though  we  may  perhaps  mention  the 
recently  published  Poesie  Electrichie  of  Govoni,  and  the 
A  Claude  Debussy  of  Paolo  Buzzi,  which  won  the  first 
prize  of  the  first  international  competition  of  H  Poesia," 
and  which  transfers  into  a  marvellously  fluid  Italian 
verse  the  at  once  ethereal  and  faunish  emotions  of 
the  composer's  music. 

But  if,  finally,  we  may  speculate  on  the  Future  of 


THE   FUTURE   OF   FUTURISM     237 

Futurism,  its  real  prospects  and  its  real  significance 
are  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that,  though  extravagant 
and  aggressive,  it  is  in  essence  a  concentrated  mani- 
festation of  the  whole  vital  impetus  of  the  twentieth 
century.  Its  relationship  to  Nietzscheanism  we  have 
already  examined.  Almost  equally  close  is  its  affinity 
to  the  standpoints  of  such  representative  spirits  of 
the  real  genius  of  this  particular  age  as  Verhaeren 
and  Mr.  Wells  ;  Verhaeren,  the  gazer  on  the  Multiple 
Splendour  of  the  Tumultuous  Forces  of  the  Visages 
of  Life,  with  his  motto,  "  Life  is  to  be  mounted  and 
not  to  be  descended  ;  the  whole  of  life  is  in  the 
soaring  upwards,"  who  expresses  in  the  strenuous 
majesty  of  his  verse  the  whole  raging  complex  of 
our  psychological  and  material  civilisation ;  Mr. 
Wells,  too,  the  glorifier  of  all  the  new  machinery  of 
our  scientific  fabric  ;  Mr.  Wells,  who,  with  all  his 
intoxication  for  the  "gigantic  syntheses  of  life," 
expresses  himself  most  effectually  by  the  maxim, 
"  The  world  exists  for  and  by  initiative,  and  the 
method  of  initiative  is  individuality." 

Even  if  we  go  to  more  concrete  and  more  topical 
manifestations,  there  is  not  wanting  evidence  that 
the  fiery  blast  of  the  Futurists  is  fanned  by  the  huge 
bellows  of  our  own  labouring  Zeitgeist. 

If  indeed  we  may  meddle  with  the  very  latest 
metaphysical  terminology,  we  would  suggest  that 
it  is  by  a  singularly  brilliant  and  apposite  stroke  of 
intuition  on  the  part  of  the  newly  discovered  elan  de 
vie  that,  at  a  time  which  is  moving  at  an  unprece- 
dented rapidity,  at  a  time  when  the  two  great  brother 
nations  of  the  Teutonic  race  are  preparing  their 
rival  sacrifices  for  the  God  of  War  with  all  the 
mocking  and  drastic  fraternity  of  a  Cain  and  of  an 
Abel  ;  when  the  air  is  thick  with  the  wings  of  a 
new  and    regenerated   France ;   when   the   militant 


288  MODERNITIES 

maenads  of  both  the  West  and  the  East,  under  the 
inspiration  of  their  dashing  and  elusive  Pythoness, 
are  waging  with  foaming  fanaticism  a  Holy  War 
of  Sex ;  when  even  one  of  the  most  responsible 
of  our  lawyers  is  coquetting  dangerously  with 
both  the  theory  and  the  practice  of  the  superior 
ethical  value  of  Active  Resistance  ;  when  the  most 
venerable  of  our  Lord  Justices  recently  interpolated 
a  homily  on  the  Law  of  Change  into  the  middle  of 
an  otherwise  purely  legal  judgment ;  when  the  two 
young,  but  patriotic  condottieri  of  either  political 
party  are  fast  leaping  into  a  more  and  more  aggres- 
sive prominence  ;  when  the  insurgent  masses  of  our 
industrial  proletariat  have  made  a  vehement  and 
not  entirely  unsuccessful  charge  against  existing 
economic  fabric  of  the  country  ;  when  Mr.  Thomas 
Hardy  has  attended,  in  the  pages  of  even  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  the  funeral  of  the  old  God  of 
pity,  and  when  Bergsonism,  judiciously  advertised  in 
the  masquerade  of  a  religious  revival,  has  replaced 
the  old  Eternal  Absolute  with  the  creative  activity 
of  an  endless  Movement,  the  Futurists  should  now 
exalt  the  sublime  vehemence  of  war,  and  the  aggres- 
sive fury  of  youth,  while  M.  Marinetti  chants  the 
strident  hallelujahs  of  the  new  God  of  sweat  and 
agony  and  tension,  and  Signor  Russolo  and  his  con- 
freres exhibit  to  us  in  the  actual  canvases  of  the 
Sackville  Galleries  the  rampant  hordes  of  rebellion 
and  the  painting  of  Movement  itself. 


INDEX 


Abel,  237 

Advent,  no 

^Eschylus  (cf.  Corelli),  115 

Alcibiades,  61 

Almansor,  32 

Alroy,  55 

Altomare,  236 

Amour,  De  l",  13,  14 

Anatol,  161,  176-9 

Anne  Veronica,  120 

Anti-Semite,  115,  190 

Anti-Semitism,  115 

Antoine,  98 

Aphrodite,  129 

Arabian  Nights,  144 

Ardath,  114,  115 

Aristotle,  74 

Armance,  15-16 

Athanasius,  89 

Attila,  117 

Aubes,  Les,  210 

Austria,  215 

Awkward  Age,  The,  153 

Balfour,  Mr.,  123 
Balzac,  38,  201 
Banti,  Consultation  de,  9 
Barker,  162 
Barrie,  J.  M.,  132 
Baths  of  Lucca,  35 
Baudelaire,  121,  144,  154 
Beaconsfield.     See  Disraeli 
Beardsley,  144 
Belgium,  197 
Bergson,  208 
Bergsonism,  238 
Berlioz,  38,  44 


Beyle.    See  Stendhal 

Beyond  the  Rocks,  128 

Bible,  89,  120 

Bigillon,  5 

Birrell,  64 

Bjornsen,  98 

Black  Flags,  95,  100,  111-13 

Blake,  219 

Blatchford,  Robert,  132 

BUs  Mouvants,  Les,  210 

Bohair,  38 

Bond,  The,  104 

Book  of  Songs,  30,  31,  35,  36,  49 

Borgia,  86 

Borne,  38,  39 

Bottomley,  Horatio,  119 

Bourget,  24 

B ovary,  Madame,  16 

Boy,  115 

Brandes,  71 

Brieux,  188 

Browning,  63 

Brummel,  61 

Bryce,  60 

Biichse  von  Pandora,  138,  145,  149, 

150.  155 
Buddhism,  72 
Burne-Jones,  219 
Buzzi,  236 
Byron,  30,  52,  93 

Cain,  81,  237 
Call  of  Life,  175-6 
Campagnes  Hallucinis,  202—4 
Carlyle,  44,  66 
Carpani,  n 
Casanova,  64 


239 


240 


MODERNITIES 


Catholicism,  39,  1 10 

Cervantes,  30 

Chant,  Mrs.  Ormiston,  133 

Chartreuse  de  Parme,  20,  21 

Chateaubriand,  6 

Chauvinism,  215 

Chesterton,  G.  K.,  1 19,  198 

Christ,  71,  no,  118,  208 

Childe  Harold,  52 

Christianity,  71,  72,  73,  76,  78,  79, 

80,  88,  93  ;  Electric  Principle  of, 

114 
Comidie  Humaine,  16 
Confession  of  a  Fool,  95,  97,  105-8 
Congreve,  187 
Conquite  des  Jztoiles,  223-5 
Conrad,  52 
Conservatism,  67 
Contarini  Fleming,  55,  62 
Corelli,  Miss  Marie,  1 14-33 
Countess  Mizzi,  161,  184 
Court  Theatre,  139 
Craigie,  Mrs.,  69 
Creditor,  The,  103 
Crispi,  230 

Crowley,  Aleister,  1 14 
Crown  Bride,  in 

Damascus,  To,  no 
Ddmmerseelen,  191 
D'Annunzio,  210,  214,  231 
Daru,  3,  4,  9,  12,  18 
Darwin,  84,  136 
Death  Dance,  97,  no-n 
DibtLcles,  Les,  199 
Debussy,  219 
Dembowska,  Countess,  12 
Democracy,  67 
Demon  de  la  Vitesse,  212,  226 
De  Profundis,  140 
Destruction,  223,  225 
Deutschland,  40 
Disraeli,  50-69 
Disraeli,  Mrs.,  62,  63,  68 
Don  Juan,  19,  50,  97,  215 
Dorian  Gray,  132 


D'Orsay,  61 
Dowie,  Dr.,  117 
Dream  Pictures,  30,  32 
Drury  Lane,  122 
Dugazon,  7 
Dumas,  38 

Easter,  no 

Ehre,  Die,  136 

Einsame  Weg,  Der,  171,  172 

Eldon,  67 

Elizabeth: 's  Visits  to  America,  128 

Embarrassments,  177 

Endymion,  52 

Erdgeist,  134,  135,  145-9 

Essen,  Siri  von,  95 

Esther  Waters,  129 

Eugenics,  154 

Faguet,  24 

Fakredeen,  52 

Father,  The,  101,  102 

Faust,  158 

Ferri,  230 

Feuerwerk,  154 

Fichte,  74 

Flamands,  Les,  198,  199 

Flambeaux  Noirs,  199-202 

Fleurs  du  Mai,  121 

Foote,  G.  W.,  119 

Forces  Tumullueuses,  196 

Foundations  of  Belief,  123 

France,  214,  237 

Franziska,  155,  157-9 

Frau  Margit,  95 

Free  Love,  139,  154 

Free  Opinions,  119 

Free  Verse,  223 

Freiwild,  1 73-5 

Froude,  51 

Fruhlingserwachen,  135, 145, 150-3, 

159 
Futurism,  212-38 

Galsworthy,  157,  159,  162,  163 
Gambetta,  67 


INDEX 


241 


Garvice,  Charles,  116 

Gautier,  38 

Geheimniss  der  Gilde,  95 

Genealogy  of  Morals,  70-90 

Genesis,  119 

Germany,  72,  135-9 

Gladstone,    53,    54,    61,    65,    66, 

68 
Gluckspeter,  95 
Glyn,  Elinor,  126-30 
Gods  Good  Man,  122 
Goethe,  74,  144 
Gog,  208 
Govoni,  236 

Green  Cockatoo,  161,  182-3 
Guilbert,  Melanie,  7 
Gull,  Ranger,  115 

Halevy,  Jehudah,  43 

Hallucinated  Country-sides,  202-4 

Hannele,  137 

Hardy,  238 

Hart,  Julius,  137 

Harzreise,  34 

Hauptmann,  137,  210 

Haydn  and  Mozart,  Lives  of,  11 

Heimkehr,  34 

Heine,  26-49,  6°.  77.  89 

Heine,  Amalie,  31,  32 

Heine,  Samson,  29 

Heine,  Solomon,  30 

Hilbte  de  Sparte,  210 

Heliogabalus,  121 

Hermant,  Abel,  122 

Hidalla,  154 

Higher  Criticism  (Corelli),  119 

His  Hour,  128 

History  of  Painting  in  Italy,  12 

Hitchman,  50 

Hobbes,  83 

Hofmann,  28 

Hogarth,  150 

Holy  Alliance,  27 

Holy  Orders,  121 

Hugo,  38,  224 

Humboldt,  38 


Ibsen,  153 

Idealists,  87 

Ihering,  85 

In  Allen  Satteln  Gerecht,  1 56 

In  Allen  Wassern  Gewaschen,  156 

Inferno,  109 

Ingersoll,  1 19 

Intoxication,  HO 

Isaiah,  72,  133 

Israel,  71,  78 

Italian  Travels,  II 

Jtafyt  35.  213 

Jack  the  Ripper,  149 

James,  Henry,  137,  153,  177,  187 

Jeremiah,  72 

Jesuits,  118 

Jesus,  71,  72 

Jew-Millionaires,  121 

Jews,  118 

Jezebels,  Upper-Ten,  121,  127 

Job,  in 

fohannes,  137 

Josepha,  30 

Journal,  Le,  24 

Judaea,  78 

Julien,  17-20 

Junge  Leiden,  35 

Juvenal,  133 

Kably,  Mdlle.,  3 
Kahn,  Gustave,  223 
Kammersanger,  Der,  140-142 
Kant,  40,  87 
Karl  Moor,  19 
Key,  Ellen,  88,  96 
Kipling,  no,  234 
Klinger,  219 

Lafayette,  38 

Lamiel,  22-23 

Lebendige  Stunden,  1 77,  1 80- 1 82 

Legends,  109 

Les  Dieux  s'en  vont  D' Annunsio 

reste,  230 
Lesbos,  131 

Q 


242 


MODERNITIES 


Liebclci,  164-166,  169 

Liebestrank,  Der,  153 

Life  Force,  145 

"Little  Mary,"  132 

Longfellow,  153 

Louason,  7,  8 

Louis  XVI,  2 

Louis  Philippe,  21 

Louys,  115,  129 

Loyola,  117 

Luccini,  236 

Lucien  Leuwen,  21-22 

Lyrisches  Intermezzo,  32,  35,  36 

Madonna,  96,  97 

Maeterlinck,  197,  230 

Mafarka  le  Futuriste,  129,  231,  232 

Maine,  81,  84 

Marchen,  Das,  167,  168 

Marinetti,  129,  212-238 

Marionetten,  177,  179 

Marius  the  Epicurean,  124 

Marquis  von  Keith,  153 

Marriage,  98-100 

Masken  und  YVunder,  191 

Mate,  The,  183 

Maupassant,  98,  191 

Maupin,  Mademoiselle  de,  157 

Meade,  L.  T.,  1 16 

Medardus,  Derjunge,  184-186 

Meissner,  38 

Meister  Olof,  94 

Meister,  Wilhelm,  55 

Melville,  Walter,  115 

Mighty  Atom,  The,  115 

Milan,  4,  12,  13,  213 

Milton,  210 

Minnehaha,  153 

Mirabeau,  Octave,  122 

Mirat,  Matilde,  41 

Miss  Julie,  102,  103 

Mil  AlUn  Hiinden  Gehetst,  156 

Moines,  Les,  199 

Moliere,  3,  121 

Alonna  Vanna,  140 

Moore,  George,  106 


Motherly  Love,  104 

Mouche,  La,  48 

Multiple  Splendeur,  Le,  208-209 

Murder  of  Delicia,  115 

Mutt,  155,  156,  157 

Napoleon,  29,  30,  69 
Nerval,  Gerard  de,  38 
New  England,  67,  153 
New  Machiavelli,  105,  120 
New  Woman  Movement,  96 
Nietzsche,  24,  70-90, 136,  144,  208, 

216 
Nirvana,  73 
Nonconformity,  119 
Nordsee  Cyklus,  33,  34 
Northcliffe,  86 
Nouvelle  Heloise,  3 

Oaha,  154 
O'Connell,  57 
O'Connor,  T.  P.,  50 
Open  Sea,  The,  100,  108 
Opportunism,  67 
Orestes,  81 
Ovid,  144 

Palazzescho,  236 

Papacy,  213 

Peel,  64 

Peladan,  131 

Pietragrua,  Countess,  4,  10,  12 

Pinero,  145 

Plain  Dealer,  The,  141 

Playing  with  Fire,  97,  104-105 

Poe,  154 

Poesia,  221,  236 

Poetische  Nachlese,  35,  491 

Pope's  Monoplane,  The,  233-236 

Professor  Bernhardt,  188-190 

Przybeszewski,  109 

Puppet -player,  179-180 

Queux,  Le,  116 

Racine  and  Shakespeare,  14,  15 
Ratcliff,  32 


INDEX 


343 


Raymond,  Jack,  119 

Realism,  138 

Red  Room,  95 

Reigen,  179 

Reisebilder,  33,  34,  35,  36,  37,  49 

Rene,  19 

Restoration,  French,  17 

Revolution,  French,  27,  28,  53 

Revolutionary  Epicke,  67 

Rhythmes  Souveraines,  Les,  210 

Richter,  38 

Risorgimento  Italiano,  213 

Road  to  the  Open,  The,  192-194 

Robespierre,  40 

Rockefeller,  86 

Rodenbach,  197 

Rodin,  211 

Romance  of  Two  Worlds,  114 

Romantic  School,  The,  40 

Romanticism,  14,  27,  28,  138 

Romanzero,  35,  47,  48 

Rome,  79,  213 

Rome,  Naples,  and  Florence,  1 1 

Roosevelt,  President,  116 

Rossetti,  219 

Rossini,  Life  of,  15 

Rouge  et  le  Noir,  Le,  9,  16,  17-20, 

56,  185 
Rousseau,  46,  83 
Rubens,  197 
Russolo,  220,  238 

Salome,  140 

Sand, 38 

Sappho,  131 

Satan,  208 

Satan,  Sorrows  of,  1 14 

Schiller,  144 

Schlegel,  38 

Schloss  von  Wetterstein,  155,  156 

Schnitzler,  161 -195 

Schopenhauer,  72,  73,  74,  144 

Secessionists,  140 

Secessionsbiihne,  137 

Sefchen,  30 

Selden,  Camille,  48 


Self-and-Sex  Series,  1 30 

Semites,  125 

Serialise,  Manual  of,  133 

Severini,  220 

Shaw,  G.  B.,  126,  135,   155,  159. 

162,  163 
Sichel,  51 
Sidonia,  52 
Smiles,  Samuel,  115 
Smith,  Adam,  7 
Socialists,  88 
Sorel,  Julien,  16-20 
Souvenirs  cFEgotisme,  24 
Spencer,  77 
Spring's    Awakening,    115.       See 

Friihlingserwachen 
St.  Amand,  197 
St.  Barbe,  197 
St.  Beuve,  24 
Stael,  Mme.  de,  40 
Stage  Society,  139,  161,  162 
Stendhal,  1-25,  74,  185 
Sterne,  30 

Stratford-on-Avon,  131 
Strauss,  219 
Strife,  163 
Strindberg,  91-113 
Stuck,  219 
Sudermann,  88,  137 
Suffragette,  96 
Superman,    75,    80    85,    87,    136, 

163 
Sutro,  162 
Swan,  Annie,  1 16 
Swan,  White,  1 1 1 
Sweden,  96 

Swedenborgianism,  no 
Swedish  Destinies,  98 
Swedish  Miniatures,  1 1 1 
Swift,  30,  44 
Swiss  Tales,  100 
Switzerland,  215 
Symbolists,  224 

Taine,  20,  24,  136 
Tamerlane,  86 


244 


MODERNITIES 


Tancred,  55,  60,  65 
Tanner,  John,  97 
Tartuffe,  121 
Technique,  163 
Temporal  Power,  120,  124 
Tenatri,  230 

Tentacular  Towns,  202-205 
Terminations,  177 
Thelma,  119,  124 
Thome,  Guy,  115 
Three  Weeks,  127,  130 
Thucydides,  132 
Tolstoi,  76,  126 
Tories,  65,  66,  67 
Torquemada,  117 
Totentanz,  126,  135,  142-4 
Tracy,  7 
Turn  of  the  Screw,  137 

Uhl,  Frida,  109 
Ultramontanes,  21 
Ultramontanism,  115 

Van  Lenburgh,  197 

Veil  of  Beatrice,  169-171 

Vendetta,  115 

Venetia,  56 

Verhaeren,  196-211,237 

Verlaine,  154,  200 

Vermdchtniss,  Die,  169 

Versunkene  Glocke,   Die,  137 

F^  <&  Henri  Brillard,  La,  24 

Vier fahrzeiten,  Die,  154 

FiYfe  Charnelle  La,  223,  228-230 


Villes    Tentaculaires,     Les,    202— 

205 
Visages  de  la  Vie,  Les,  208 
Fi'OT'aw  6Vv?y,  19,  52,  55,  56,  59 
Voltaire,  42,  46,  jy,  89 
Voynich,  Mrs.  ,119 

Wagner,  73 

Ward,  Mrs.,  126 

Waste,  163 

Weber,  Die,  136,  210 

Wedekind,  98,  126,  134-160 

Weg  in's  Freie,  Der,  192-194 

Weites  Land,  Das,  184,  186-188 

Wells,  237 

Werther,  19 

Westermarck,  84 

Whigs,  65,66,  67 

Whitman,  Walt,  223 

Wilde,  89,  139,  140 

Will  to  Live,  73 

Williams,  Mrs.  Brydges,  63 

Woman  with  the  Dagger,  180-182 

Women  atheists,  118 

Wormwood,  115 

Wycherley,  141 

Young   Men's   Christian   Associa- 
tion, 2 1 5 

Zarathustra,  70,  80-3,  88 
Zensur,  155,  156 
Zwischenspiel,  172,  173 
Zola,  118,  136,  145 


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